Month: July 2019

A finding that’s making the rounds nowadays reveals that Microsoft Edge (the version that is offered natively on Windows 10) sends URL information to Microsoft when SmartScreen is enabled, together with your account’s security identifier (SID).

SmartScreen is a feature that’s designed to protect Windows users by comparing an URL they struggle to load in the default browser against a listing maintained by Microsoft.

If the URL is flagged as dangerous, users get to see an alert, and if it’s not, the page can somewhat be loaded in the browser with no notification on user’s side.

The more worrying discovery, however, is the fact that Microsoft includes the SID within this report. Since the SID is unique and is linked to a Windows 10 account, it could be feasible for Microsoft to inform who visits what when browsing the net.

Microsoft says the following concerning the SID:

“A security identifier (SID) can be used to uniquely identify a security principal or security group. Security principals can represent any entity that can be authenticated through the operating system, like a user account, a computer account, or a thread or procedure that runs within the security context of the user or computer account.”

SIDs are unique for every account, so there can’t be two similar identifiers on the same device.

“Each account or group, or process running in the security context of the account, includes a unique SID that is from an expert, such as a Windows domain controller. It’s kept in a security database. The machine generates the SID that identifies a specific account or group at that time the account or group is created. Whenever a SID has been used as the unique identifier for any user or group, it may not be recycled to identify another user or group.”

While the SID can’t be found in Settings on a Windows 10 device, it’s actually simple to decipher it, also it all comes down to just a single command that you can use in Command Prompt.

First of all, you need to launch an elevated Command Prompt session, that is an instance of the command line utility launched with administrator rights. To get this done, click the Start menu and kind cmd.exe. Next, right-click the result and choose Run as administrator.

In Command Prompt, you should utilize the next command to determine the SIDs for those user accounts in your device:

WMIC useraccount get name,sid

You should now visit a list of all user accounts on your device, with their associated SIDs. Those long numbers displayed within the list in Command Prompt are the security identifiers, and you can copy all of them with a mouse selection if you want to save them elsewhere.

As the aforementioned command displays the SIDs for all user accounts around the device, you can view the security identifier for just one account having a different command. However, what this means is you understanding the username. The command is this one:

useraccount where name=”username” get sid

What you need to do is to switch the username tag (the main one in bold) using the actual name of the user account. Make sure you jot it down correctly because otherwise, the command would fail to return any improvements.

There are some other methods to see the SIDs on the Windows device, including while using Registry Editor, however this one right here is really the simplest for all users. It ought to technically work on all Windows 10 versions, regardless of the SKU that is placed on the device.

The original form of Microsoft Edge currently coming pre-installed on Windows 10 is sending the full URL of the sites you trip to Microsoft, according to a security researcher.

The information includes not just page information, but the SID, which stands for security identifier, researcher Matt Weeks says on Twitter.

“Edge apparently sends the full Link to pages you visit (minus several popular sites) to Microsoft. And, in contrast to documentation, includes your very non-anonymous account ID (SID),” he posted.

Microsoft utilizes a feature called SmartScreen to protect users against very damaging websites whenever they are loaded in the browser. SmartScreen works by analyzing the URL against a list of reported links maintained by Microsoft, therefore the page you visit is submitted to a Microsoft server to find out if the site should be allowed or otherwise.

SID possibly exposed

Weeks, however, learned that the sent information, which doesn’t appear to be hashed, includes the SID. Microsoft says the following about the SID in the official documentation:

“A security identifier (SID) can be used to uniquely identify a security principal or security group. Security principals can represent any entity that may be authenticated by the operating-system, such as a user account, a computer account, or perhaps a thread or process that runs in the security context of a user or computer account.”

In theory, by including the SID in the report, Microsoft will easily notice who visits what when SmartScreen is enabled in Windows 10. Automatically, SmartScreen for Microsoft Edge is configured with the “Warn” setting on the Windows 10 device.

Microsoft, however, admits in its privacy statement that some good info is indeed listed in the company in order to power SmartScreen, due to the fact this is the way the feature works.

“When checking a file, data about that file is distributed to Microsoft, such as the file name, a hash from the file’s contents, the download location, and the file’s digital certificates,” Microsoft says.

The researcher, however, shows that this system might be improved using an approach similar to the one utilized by other browsers.

“Firefox, Chrome, and Safari do not send your browsing history for their cloud overlords like Edge does. They compare 4-byte URL hash prefixes with downloaded bad hash lists,” he states.

Microsoft is yet to reply to these concerns with an official statement, but we’ve reached to the organization and can update the article if an answer is offered.

Microsoft has released the normal non-security batch of cumulative updates for Windows 10, however this time only older versions from the operating-system are becoming the improvements.

These cumulative updates are aimed at Windows 10 April 2018 Update (version 1803) and former releases. Windows 10 October 2018 Update (version 1809) and could 2019 Update (version 1903) aren’t included in this cumulative update rollout.

Most likely, both Windows 10 version 1809 and 1903 will get new cumulative updates within the future before the end of the month.

What’s important to know is the fact that in the patched versions of Windows 10, just the April 2018 Update is still supported for Home and Pro SKUs. Older versions are just serviced for Enterprise and Education SKUs so that as part of the Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC).

Important bug fixes

Fundamental essentials Windows 10 versions getting patched and the cumulative updates they received on July 16:
Windows 10 version 1803: KB4507466 (OS Build 17134.915)
Windows 10 version 1709: KB4507465 (OS Build 16299.1296)
Windows 10 version 1703: KB4507467 (OS Build 15063.1955)
Windows 10 version 1607: KB4507459 (OS Build 14393.3115)

When you can check out the changelogs in full in the box after the jump, the Windows 10 version 1803 cumulative update brings two notable fixes for a screen reader bug and app permissions. The next two lines are contained in the release notes:

“Addresses a problem with opening or while using Window-Eyes screen reader application that may result in a mistake and prevent some features from functioning not surprisingly.

Addresses an issue that may neglect to keep App permissions settings when you select Keep my files after selecting Reset this PC.”

These cumulative updates are now available from Windows Update and also the Microsoft Update Catalog, and you may have them simply by checking for updates in Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > Look for updates.