Saint SpoolFool, Jester of the Print Queue

Patron of the Print Spooler, folders created where they shouldn't be, and patches that fix the previous patch.

Life

On 8 February 2022 Microsoft fixed CVE-2022-21999 and Oliver Lyak published how it worked. The Print Spooler, already made famous by PrintNightmare, let any user set a printer's spool folder and, with a well-placed link, have it created inside a system directory; from there to loading a DLL as SYSTEM was a short step. It bypassed an earlier fix: the Spooler never stops surprising.

Prayer

O Saint SpoolFool, who mocks our print queues, keep the Spooler switched off wherever nobody prints. Amen.

How to celebrate

Celebrated by installing the February 2022 updates and disabling the Spooler on servers that haven't seen a printer since last century.

Patch the Spooler once, and you'll patch it twice.