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Microsoft Readies Massive February Patch
Microsoft's monthly security update will arrive on Tuesday with 12 bulletins targeting 57 vulnerabilities, according to the Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification.
Five of the bulletins have been labeled "critical," and address remote code execution issues in Windows, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Server Software.
Having the five critical items spread across only three Microsoft products is a mixed bag for IT, according to Ross Barrett, Rapid7's Senior Manager of Security Engineering:
"It's both good and bad news that the patches are mostly clustered on Windows Operating System, without dipping too much into Office or more esoteric specialty Microsoft products," said Barret, in an e-mailed statement. "It's good because administrators probably don't have to worry about applying multiple patches for the same advisory to a single host. It's bad because an organization with even the simplest deployment of Microsoft products will probably be hit by all of these advisories, meaning their desktop and server teams will be extra busy."
The remaining seven items, all classified as "important" cover additional flaws in Windows, Microsoft .NET Framework, Office and Microsoft Server Software.
Along with today's advanced notification, Dustin Childs of Microsoft Trustworthy Computing sent word that Security Advisory 2755801, which deals with Adobe Flash Player updates, was revised to reflect the new security update released last week by Oracle.
"Today we revised Security Advisory 2755801 to address issues in Adobe Flash Player in Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8, this revision was released in conjunction with Adobe's update process, said Childs," in a blog post. "Customers who have automatic updates enabled will not need to take any action because protections will be downloaded and installed automatically."
Look for Microsoft to go into more details of its mothly patch and the flaws it addresses once the security update is released on Tuesday morning.