On Tuesday, October 14, Microsoft will publish their newest security update. This patch Tuesday release has nine bulletins. However, only three of these are rated "Critical", five are rated "Important" and one is rated "Moderate". These bulletins will affect Internet Explorer, .NET Framework, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Web Apps, Microsoft Office Web Services, Microsoft Development Tools and Microsoft Windows.
All supported Windows PC-based operating systems and Windows server-based operating systems are affected due to many of the Microsoft Windows bulletins are based on internal OS components. These include Windows operating systems as old as Windows Server 2003 and as new as Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2. Since a restart will be required to install these updates, you may want to plan ahead for that during your scheduled maintenance window and plan on having an extra coffee break next Tuesday!
Yet again, the Internet Explorer bulletin will be the highest priority to patch. This marks the ninth patch Tuesday in a row that includes patches for Internet Explorer. Like the previous IE bulletins, this bulletin will have more than twenty-five CVEs and some of these are expected to be exploited in the wild. This bulletin is especially critical to users who use Internet Explorer as their default web browser. All of these updates can be applied by ensuring that Automatic Updates is turned on so that these will be downloaded as soon as they become available.
For a complete run-down of the October Microsoft security bulletins, please come back next Tuesday, October 14. We'll see you then!