Ms 150 Training Plan

Understanding the Ms 150 Training Plan

The Ms 150 Training Plan is essentially a structured approach to patching and remediating the MS15-050 vulnerability that Microsoft flagged back in 2015. It became one of the most critical security bulletins in recent history, and the training plan that grew around it was designed to help IT teams move from awareness to actual deployment without breaking production environments. Most people just call it the Ms 150 Training Plan at this point because the original bulletin name lost relevance after a decade. At its core the plan addresses a kernel-mode driver vulnerability that allowed privilege escalation with no user interaction required. The exploit was so straightforward and reliable that it immediately became a target for automated worm activity. The training plan walks you through identification, staging, testing, and deployment of the relevant patches across Windows systems. I spent about three weeks in 2015 working through this with a mid-sized enterprise that had roughly 4,000 endpoints. The real challenge wasn't reading the bulletin. It was coordinating the patch rollout across systems that had been patched inconsistently for years, dealing with third-party drivers that hadn't been updated, and managing the dependency chain between cumulative updates and the specific MS15-050 fix.

How the Training Plan Works in Practice

The process starts with asset discovery. You need a complete inventory of every Windows machine on the network and their current patch levels. Without this step you're just guessing. I used WSUS reports combined with a PowerShell script that checked the KB number directly on each machine. This caught about 12 percent of systems that hadn't reported in through WSUS in over six months. Next comes the dependency check. MS15-050 isn't a standalone patch in many cases. It's layered on top of other prerequisites, and older Windows versions require specific service stacks before the main fix will install cleanly. I learned this the hard way on a batch of Windows Server 2008 R2 machines that kept failing at step one with error code 0x800f0906. The workaround was applying the servicing stack update first then rebooting before attempting the actual MS15-050 patch. Without that intermediate reboot the installation would consistently fail.

Staging and Testing Before Deployment

The training plan emphasizes staged rollout, and that recommendation exists for a reason. I deployed to a pilot group of 50 machines first and caught a conflict with a legacy accounting application that used a custom kernel driver. The patch installed fine but the application started crashing on startup. We ended up quarantining that driver version and notifying the vendor before expanding further. Skipping that pilot stage would have meant dealing with support calls from every finance department at once. For testing I recommend using your patch management tool's maintenance window feature. Set up a test OU in Active Directory, apply the update through Group Policy with a forced restart schedule, and monitor the results for at least 48 hours before approving broader deployment. Most issues surface in that window.

Common Pitfalls and What to Watch For

One thing the training plan doesn't always stress enough is the impact on non-patchable systems. There are machines that should never receive certain updates. Medical devices, industrial controllers, specialized engineering workstations. These systems often run customized or legacy operating systems where the MS15-050 patch simply isn't available or would break the application stack. The correct approach here is network segmentation and firewall rules to isolate those machines from the networks where exploitation would be possible. A patch you can't install isn't a reason to leave a system connected to everything. Another issue I ran into repeatedly was partial patch states. Systems that had the update downloaded but not installed due to failed reboots, or systems that were offline during the patch window and came back to a confused state. Within a week of deployment I was chasing down about 15 percent of the fleet for these half-applied situations. A simple script checking for the presence of KB3045999 on each machine caught most of them quickly.

Verification and Documentation

After deployment you need to verify and document. The training plan includes a checklist for confirming the patch status across all systems. I recommend maintaining a spreadsheet with columns for hostname, OS version, patch status, and any exceptions with justification. This becomes essential during audits and when the next similar vulnerability hits and you need to prove your environment is covered. The verification step usually takes less than an hour for a environment of 2,000 to 5,000 systems if you have proper tooling. Without it you're flying blind, and that's exactly when vulnerabilities get exploited in the gap between deployment and confirmation.

Alternatives When the Plan Doesn't Fit

There are scenarios where the standard Ms 150 Training Plan approach falls apart. Environments with strict change control windows that don't allow reboots during the remediation period. Systems where the vulnerability is already mitigated by architectural controls like Application Whitelisting or mandatory integrity levels. In those cases the priority shifts from patching to compensating controls. If you're running in a constrained environment where patching isn't immediately feasible, focus on network segmentation first, then apply the patch during the next available maintenance window. Don't assume that because you can't patch today you're safe forever. MS15-050 was a baseline vulnerability that opened the door for a lot of follow-on exploitation frameworks. Every month without the patch increases your exposure.