Microsoft Releases New 'Critical' Patches
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Microsoft Corp. today released an unprecedented number of software security updates to plug flaws in its products, including seven "critical" defects that it said hackers could use to hijack vulnerable computers running the Windows operating system.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft plans to release 13 sets of security patches next Tuesday fixing critical vulnerabilities in a number of its products, including the company's new security software. The bulk of the patches will fix flaws in the Windows operating system and Office, Microsoft said in a statement published Thursday on its Web site. Five of the updates will be for Windows, and two of them will be for Office. Microsoft also plans to release one less-critical update that addresses flaws in both Windows and Office. The patches will be released as part of Microsoft's monthly cycle of security updates. There will also be patches for Microsoft's Step-by-Step Interactive Training andÂ Microsoft Data Access Components and an update that covers both Windows and Visual Studio. Finally, Microsoft will also publish an update that patches critical flaws in its Windows Live OneCare, Antigen, Windows Defender, and ForeFront security software. The Office patches have been anticipated as online criminals have been exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities in Word and Excel for several months now. These attacks, which are occurring on a limited scale according to Microsoft, try to trick the victim into opening a maliciously coded Office attachment in order to compromise the PC.
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By JESSICA MINTZ SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. released four critical patches Tuesday to plug security holes in several versions of its Windows operating system, Internet Explorer Web browser and other programs.
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Acknowledging that its patching process has "not been an example of our best work," Microsoft this week issued a second update to security bulletin MS06-042, which was released in August. The original patch included a security vulnerability - and it turns out the fix introduced even more.
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No critical patches for most Windows users Microsoft served comparatively modest fare for its monthly patch release on Tuesday, issuing only four security-related updates, only one of which carried its top severity rating of critical. It plugged a hole in a Windows 2000 component, while the other updates fixed vulnerabilities rated as important in instant messenger programs, Visual Studio .Net and Windows services for Unix found on several different versions of the Windows operating system.â¦
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Microsoft Corp. today released just two security updates that patch three vulnerabilities in Windows, with just one of the three flaws rated critical.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft Corp. has rolled out its monthly security updates for December, patching critical flaws in Internet Explorer, Windows Media Format, and the Visual Studio 2005 development software. The seven security patches address 11 bugs, including two in the Windows Media Player software. However, no fixes were provided for two Microsoft Word flaws that have been used in a small number of attacks during the past week. Microsoft had said it would release only six patches on Tuesday, but the company added the Windows Media Format update at the last minute, after reports of attacks based on this vulnerability began surfacing. The Windows Media Format is used by Microsoft's Windows Media Player software. In late November, security vendors warned that a buffer overflow error could occur when the Windows Media Player processed ".asx" (Advanced Stream Redirector) media files, meaning that users would first need to be tricked into opening a malicious media file for the attack to work. In its update Tuesday, Microsoft also patched a similar bug in the way the media player processes ".asf" (Advanced Systems Format) files. The Internet Explorer patch fixes four bugs. It is also rated critical, and is noteworthy because some of these bugs will probably begin to be exploited by hackers by week's end, said Gunter Ollmann, director of IBM Corp.'s Internet Security System's X-Force threat analysis service. Enterprise administrators should also pay close attention to an SNMP (Simple Network Monitoring Protocol) patch issued Tuesday, Ollmann said. Microsoft has rated this patch as "important," rather than critical because SNMP is normally blocked at the firewall and turned off by default on Windows systems. However, it is widely deployed as part of the network monitoring infrastructure in the enterprise, and is often used on critical servers, Ollmann said. Ollmann believes this SNMP patch is the "most important" update for enterprise customers. "Since the service is widely deployed in the enterprise and since it's commonly deployed on servers, we think this would be an important attack vector for enterprises," he said. The remaining updates include a "critical" fix for Visual Studio 2005, and "important" updates for Windows and Outlook Express, Microsoft said. Microsoft defines "critical" flaws as bugs that could allow the propagation of an Internet worm without any action on the part of the victim. The company's next set of security updates are due Jan. 9.
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Microsoft releases critical Explorer patch VNUNet.com
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft will release five sets of security patches next Tuesday, including a critical update for users of Windows 2000,Â the company saidÂ Thursday. With the remaining four security updates rated as "important" by Microsoft, this latest round of patches appears to be less worrisome than the August updates. Last month,Â Microsoft released nine updates, six of which were rated critical. Microsoft rates its bug fixes as critical when attackers can exploit the flaws without requiring any user action. Also set to be patched this month are Visual Studio, Windows Services for Unix, SharePoint Services, and the Windows Live and MSN Messenger software. Microsoft releases its security patches on the second Tuesday of each month, generally around 11 a.m., Pacific time. With this latest rounds of patches, Microsoft will have released 55 updates in 2007, the same number it had released by September of last year.
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And a further five 'important' patches Microsoft released eleven patches yesterday, with six of them meriting a critical rating.â¦
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Microsoft plans to release patches for five Windows flaws next week, the software giant announced Thursday. The company posted the information on its TechNet site as part of a new program that gives the general
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Microsoft has released a critical update for Windows Service Pack 2, designed to resolve an installation problem with a piece of adware -- but it maintains that the update isn&#39;ta patch.
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Microsoft (Quote, Chart) officials have announced two patches as part of its monthly releases for September -- one rated critical, one important.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft will release six sets of security patches next Tuesday, four of which will fix critical flaws in the Windows operating system. The software will be released as part of Microsoft's regular monthly security release, known informally as "Patch Tuesday." Microsoft is also planning less critical updates for Visio and Windows Vista, the company said in a note, published Thursday. Microsoft considers an update critical when the flaw could be used by an attacker to remotely run unauthorized software on the victim's machine, theoretically leading to the propagation of an Internet worm. This month, Microsoft has revealed a few more details on the upcoming patches than it has in the past. That's part ofÂ a new plan to help IT administratorsÂ better prepare for Patch Tuesday by letting them know exactly what versions of Microsoft's products will be affected by the updates. Last month, Microsoft released seven groups of patches on Patch Tuesday.
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Microsoft has unveiled its security bulletin for December, including a critical patch for Windows XP with SP1, and fixes rated as important for SP2.
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Microsoft Corp. issued six  "critical" security patches on Tuesday to fix flaws in its  software products that the company warned could allow attackers  to take control of a user's computer.
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Eleven security updates are released today that fix a number of critical flaws in Microsoft products, including Windows, Office, and Internet Explorer.