Big Patch Tuesday for Microsoft
- By Peter Varhol
- 02/12/2008
After a couple of months of minimal releases, it looks like Microsoft is serving
up an extra-large helping of security patches. A whopping
six
critical patches are on the menu, as well as five labeled important.
The critical patches all involve problems concerning remote code execution,
and affect Windows, Office, Internet Explorer and Visual Basic. A planned critical
patch for Jscript and VBscript was dropped from the lineup.
The five important patches affect Windows, Active Directory, ADAM, IIS and
Works, and involve elevation of privilege, denial of service and remote code
execution. Get ready for some long updates.
Tech Spending Forecast Dims
Forrester Research has released an updated
2008 forecast that says U.S. companies and government agencies are expected
to increase spending on information technology by just 2.8 percent this year.
That's quite a bit less than the 4.6 percent growth that Forrester had predicted
in December.
In particular, communications equipment investment will grow at a rate below
the average, while both software and consulting services will tend to do better.
What do your spending plans look like for 2008? Give you your 2 cents at [email protected].
Dell Limits Sales of AMD PCs Online
It looks like Dell has backed away from selling PCs with AMD processors, announcing
that it would severely
limit the online availability of systems using the alternative processor
family. AMD-based PCs will still be available through retail stores and over
the phone.
Are you looking for an AMD Dell? Let me know at [email protected].
Another BlackBerry Outage
Late yesterday, RIM apparently experienced yet another
BlackBerry e-mail outage, with service becoming unavailable starting around
3:30 p.m. EST.
At this time, no word is available as to the cause or duration of the outage,
but this is the second BlackBerry outage in several months. Such an occurrence
is an annoyance or worse to those who depend on their BlackBerry units for fast
and remote e-mail.
How about you? Did you notice a problem? Let me know at [email protected].
Mailbag: Patching Microsoft's Patch
Cycle
Yesterday, Doug suggested that Microsoft was taking
the bold route by announcing its faults far and wide with every Patch Tuesday
(whereas other companies may release patches quietly). Here are one reader's
thoughts:
I agree that Microsoft's openness regarding its security issues are great
and they have a very different attitude compared to the NT 4 days. I also
praise them for the research they do themselves to find security holes in
addition to all the third-party searching.
I just wish they would re-institute the old Security Patch Roll-Up idea
they had several years ago. Remember when they mentioned the desktop OS (NT4
Workstation) and server they would release with a semi-annual -- or was it
an annual -- security patch roll-up? Since there is such a huge gap between
service packs, they really need to provide this at least once a year.
-Marcus
Have something you want to add? Let us know! Leave a comment below or send
an e-mail to [email protected].
About the Author
Peter Varhol is the executive editor,
reviews of Redmond magazine and has more than 20 years of experience as a software
developer, software product manager and technology writer. He has graduate degrees
in computer science and mathematics, and has taught both subjects at the university
level.