Service Packs for SharePoint 2013 and Office Web Apps Rereleased

Recalled in early April, service packs for SharePoint 2013 and Office Web Apps have now been rereleased, but the anticipated fix for the rerelease is so far unclear.

You might recall, I covered the removal of the Office Web Apps service pack on April 9. Microsoft removed the service pack because it created a situation where it prohibited future updates from being able to be applied. At the time this was a huge issue because Microsoft had rolled out a permanent fix for the highly publicized RTF file vulnerability. The RTF file vulnerability allowed hackers to exploit the file format to take over a user's PC.

New KBs (2880558 and 2880552) have been assigned to the rerelease of the service packs, but they only states that the new downloads include unreleased fixes, general product fixes and all cumulative updates through December 2013 and all security fixes through January 2014. It does not address the ability to receive future updates.

I can only assume that previously unreleased fixes means that the issue has been addressed and resolved, but we'll have to wait to hear from Microsoft.

Here's the downloads:

Service Pack 1 for Microsoft Office Web Apps Server (KB2880558)

Service Pack 1 for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 (KB2880552)

Interestingly, SharePoint Server 2003 and Microsoft Office Web Apps share the same change log which can be downloaded here:

Microsoft Office and SharePoint 2013 Service Pack 1 Changes.xlsx

A line in the Notes section of the change log reads:

SP1 also contains additional changes which are less visible, but improve various aspects of the product. This includes reducing crashes, improving security, and fixing other issues too specific to include in this list.

So, while the change log, it seems, is not complete, it also does not spell out whether or not the issue with future updates has been addressed, but it does (sort of) elude to improving security.