Giant patch release from Microsoft, Oracle
Record Patch Tuesday combines with swathe of extra fixes for corporates.
It's a busy week for corporate admins as Microsoft's monthly Patch Tuesday security bulletin, containing a bumper
16 separate alerts covering nearly 50 separate vulnerabilities in the company's software range, emerged the same day
as a similarly sizeable raft of fixes from Oracle, affecting both its long-standing database range and recently
acquired Sun Microsystems products including the Solaris operating system, Java programming platform
and OpenOffice productivity suite.
The Microsoft release, thought to be the biggest ever in terms of unique flaws covered, includes four alerts
labelled 'Critical', including problems with the .NET Framework, the Media Player server service, the
Embedded OpenType Font Engine, and the usual collection of fixes for the Internet Explorer browser.
All of these will affect multiple versions of Windows and may expose unpatched users to remote code exploitation
and system compromise. Other software needing patching includes kernel-mode drivers, Word, Excel and
much more besides.
Oracle's patching regime runs quarterly, with Java updates released three times a year, and the two overlap
in October. The latest release issued on Tuesday includes a large number of fixes for the firm's range of data
management solutions as well as patches for serious, remotely exploitable vulnerabilities in Solaris, Java
and OpenOffice/StarOffice. Full details of the issues with Oracle's core products are available
here, with coverage of the
Java problems here and
the schedule for future patch releases here.
Microsoft's October bulletin is here,
with a summary from SANS here and a detailed blog from
Symantec here. More
commentary on the patch bonanza, including discussion of its relevance to the infamous Stuxnet threat, is at
The Register here.
As usual, anyone running vulnerable software is advised to apply all patches or workarounds as soon as possible.
14 October 2010
Tags:
Microsoft, Oracle, exploit, java, patch, patch tuesday, solaris, vulnerability.
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