Microsoft readies its Patch Tuesday release

INSECURITY AWARENESS TESTING FIRM Microsoft will release its latest Patch Tuesday vulnerability fixes this week and settle 22 issues with its software systems.

Last week, in an advance notification the firm warned users to be ready for the release and urged them to check back for updates on the severity of issues.

"Today we're releasing our advance notification for the August security bulletin release, which is scheduled for Tuesday, August 9," wrote Angela Gunn from Redmond's oxymoron department, Microsoft Trustworthy Computing.

"This month's release includes 13 bulletins addressing 22 vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, Office, Internet Explorer, .NET and Visual Studio. All 13 bulletins will be released on Tuesday, August 9 at approximately 10 a.m. PDT. Revisit this blog on Tuesday for our official risk and impact analysis, along with deployment guidance and a video overview of the release."

Just two of the vulnerabilities are marked as critical, these being ones that apply to Internet Explorer versions 6 through to 8 and, rather deceptively simply put, Microsoft Windows. The remaining 11 are a mix of moderate and, important patches that apply to Microsoft Office and the Microsoft .NET Framework, for example.

Most, if not all, patches will require a system restart and the most critical vulnerabilities put systems at risk of remote code execution, denial of service attacks and elevated privileges.

Business as usual at Microsoft then. µ