PC Pals Forum
Technical Help & Discussion => General Tech Discussion, News & Q&A => Topic started by: Clive on May 09, 2012, 14:21
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It was the first Tuesday of the month yesterday, meaning that it was once again time for Microsoft to roll out its regular collection of security updates under the familiar moniker of "Patch Tuesday".
The bundle of patches from Microsoft covers at least 23 documented vulnerabilities, and includes fixes for exploits that could be invoked in Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows, the Microsoft .NET Framework and Microsoft Silverlight.
The worst of the Microsoft vulnerabilities have earned the highest severity level of "Critical", and require no user interaction for a malicious attacker to run code on a victim's computer.
One patch, MS12-034, is specifically aimed at fixing attack vectors which have previous been exploited by Duqu - dubbed "the son of Stuxnet", and believed to target industrial control systems.
Another vulnerability, which many companies will certainly want to patch against, is the one detailed in MS12-029. If left unpatched, the vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user opens a boobytrapped RTF file.
As always, you can read the interpretation of SophosLabs on the seriousness of the various Microsoft vulnerabilities on the vulnerabilities page.
Remember, if you don't have auto-updating turned on, you can click the Windows Update icon on the Start Menu to download Microsoft security updates.
Separately, Adobe issued security bulletins yesterday related to Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Flash Professional and Adobe Shockwave Player.
Any Windows or Mac computer user who still feels it's necessary to run Adobe Shockwave Player is advised to update to the latest version (currently 11.6.5.635).
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Can't wait. :)
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You'll have to. Four machines took about three hours!
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:horror:
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Exactly. I had two machines running on each line to speed things up.
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Even SP3 didn't take that long!
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Oh you wait until you download SP3 for Win7. It takes forever and it's as scary as hell. I honestly thought I'd lost Mrs Clive's laptop!
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Is that already on SP3? I think I'll probably get Windows 7 when it's finished.
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I honestly thought it had screwed up her laptop. Win 7 updates in a much more scary way than XP as it doesn't keep you informed of what's going on for most of the time. When it does eventually put you in the picture it reboots 3 no less than times before you know all is well. A lot of the time you just have a totally blank screen! :nerves:
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I've just updated my XP machine, which was very straightforward, and took about 15 minutes, with one reboot, followed by one more small update, with no reboot. My Vista machine has now been on it for around an hour, and I've had to reboot it three times so far. Tell me again, why should I upgrade from XP? ::)
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Hear hear.
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My XP updated automatically without any hitches apart from the fact that I thought I had disabled automatic updates! >:(