Microsoft has decided that the problems with the Internet Explorer browser are too important to wait for another Patch Tuesday. Microsoft, in an uncharacteristic, and somewhat hushed way, has issued an advisory that it will be issuing emergency patches for Internet Explorer and Visual Studio on Tuesday.
The patches both cover flaws that allow remote code execution on both applications. The Internet Explorer patch is rated ‘critical’ and the Visual Studio download is rated ‘moderate’.
[from v3.co,uk]
“While we can’t go into specifics about the issue prior to release, we can say that the Visual Studio bulletin will address an issue that can affect certain types of applications,” said Microsoft in a statement.
“The Internet Explorer bulletin will provide defense-in-depth changes to Internet Explorer to help provide additional protections for the issues addressed by the Visual Studio bulletin. The Internet Explorer update will also address vulnerabilities rated as critical that are unrelated to the Visual Studio bulletin that were privately and responsibly reported,”
This is only the second time Microsoft has broken its Patch Tuesday regimen in over two years. It is generally a sign that the company has been informed that exploits for the flaws have been spotted in the wild.
Microsoft will host webcasts on 28 July at 1pm and 4pm Pacific time to explain the issues.
I’ve looked around in all the usual places on websites here, on this side of the pond, and found nothing, yet the article has been on the cited place for two days. Interesting.
It does seem as though the more that Microsoft thumps its collective chest, stating how secure the browser and operating system are, the harder the ne’er-do-wells work to remove those abilities to brag. These people are clearly under-employed, with way too much time on their hands…perhaps Microsoft would do well to make them part of the ‘family’, and get them working on the right side of things.
I’ve never been interested in this sort of thing before, as I usually leave it to others to protect Internet Explorer installations, so I can’t say to a point of certainty, but I have never read about a webcast being put on, for the express purpose of explaining a patch release. It does seem as though it might be best if those people in Europe choose something other than IE8 on their ballot when setting up Windows 7.
***Interesting fact of the day – Have you ever noticed that in America, many things, such as company groups, in one case Microsoft, are treated as a collective noun, and therefore used with the singular form of a verb, while in the U.K., New Zealand, and Australia, the same names are treated as collective plurals, and used with the plural form of associated verbs? ***
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I never hated a man enough to give him diamonds back.Zsa Zsa Gabor |