News
Microsoft To Release Six 'Critical' Patches Tuesday
Microsoft will be releasing a host of patches next week, including six "Critical" and three "Important" updates, in its monthly Patch Tuesday releases.
The six Critical issues have remote code execution implications, and is double the number of Critical patches released in July.
The patches are for various products and applications including Visual Basic, XML Core Services, Office for Mac, Office 2000, Internet Explorer and Virtual PC and Server.
Windows products will bear the brunt of the upcoming fixes; the number of Critical items affecting Windows and related offshoots jumped this month to four. Desktop OSes affected include Vista, Windows XP and Windows 2000. Multiple versions of Windows Server 2003 are also affected.
In total, out of the nine projected bulletins, no less than seven items will require system restarts.
Like it has in successive months, the company also plans the release of an update to the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal tool. Redmond is also poised to roll out four high-priority, non-security updates on Microsoft Update and two on Windows Update.
As always, Thursday's advance notification is not an exact science, as patches could be pulled or altered; but security managers need to be prepared, because it looks as if next Tuesday could be a busy day.
About the Author
Jabulani Leffall is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in the Financial Times of London, Investor's Business Daily, The Economist and CFO Magazine, among others.