Microsoft and Adobe will roll out patches for Windows and Reader

SOFTWARE OUTFITS Microsoft and Adobe are getting ready to roll out important security patches next week.

Next Tuesday, Microsoft will release 16 security bulletins fixing 34 vulnerabilities, with nine rated as critical and the other seven rated as important. Most of the bulletins concern issues with all versions of Windows, while on the server side SQL Server, Silverlight and the .NET framework are affected.

The pre-notification also indicates that all versions of Excel in Microsoft Office will be updated on both Windows and Mac OS X. Internet Explorer versions 6, 7, 8 and 9 will also be patched.

Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of Qualys said, "All in all, a big update and system administrators will need to plan closely as both workstations and servers are affected by the critical bulletins."

The same day, 14 June is also the date for Adobe to release a patch as part of its regular quarterly update cycle for Adobe Acrobat and Reader. In the past few months much attention has focused on the security weaknesses of Flash, but Reader is also viewed as an attack vector by criminals.

The Adobe patches will address critical vulnerabilities in Adobe Reader X, Reader 9.4.3 and its earlier versions, as well as Acrobat X, Acrobat 9.4.2 and earlier versions for Windows and Mac OS X. µ