Posted by Virus Bulletin on Oct 14, 2010
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.
Posted on 14 October 2010 by Virus Bulletin
