Microsoft, Adobe Post February 2011 Patch Day Information

Patch Tuesday is coming up and Microsoft has released an advanced notification about the upcoming security patches. Patch Tuesday refers to the second Tuesday of each month on which security patches are released to the public.

The Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for February 2011 details the upcoming patches. A total of 12 security bulletins are released next Tuesday of which all but one fix issues in the Microsoft Windows operating system. The remaining patch fixes a vulnerability in Microsoft Office.

Three of the security vulnerabilities have received a maximum severity rating of critical, the highest available rating, the remaining nine a severity rating of important.

• Microsoft's newest operating system Windows 7 is affected by seven of the twelve issues. Of those, two are rated critical and the remaining five as important.
• Windows Vista is affected by six vulnerabilities with three rated as critical and the remaining three as important.
• Windows XP is affected by eight vulnerabilities with two being rated as critical and six as important.
• Windows Server 2003 is affected by 10 vulnerabilities of which one is critical, eight are important and one is moderate.
• Windows Server 2008 is affected in the same way as the Vista operating system, with the exception that one of the critical vulnerabilities is only rated as moderate here.
• Windows Server 2008 R2 finally is affected the same way as Windows 7, again with the exception of two vulnerabilities that are rated as moderate instead of critical and important.

The remaining vulnerabiliy affected Microsoft Visio 2002 Service Pack 2, Visio 2003 Service Pack 3 and Visio 2007 Service Pack 2. It is rated as important.

The advanced notifications are accessible here.

Adobe

Adobe has released a Prenotification Security Advisory for Adobe Reader and Acrobat.

Adobe is planning to release updates for Adobe Reader X (10.0) for Windows and Macintosh, Adobe Reader 9.4.1 and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX, Adobe Acrobat X (10.0) for Windows and Macintosh, and Adobe Acrobat 9.4.1 and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh to resolve critical security issues. Adobe expects to make updates for Windows and Macintosh available on Tuesday, February 8, 2011. An update for UNIX is expected to be available by the week of February 28, 2011.

Expect lots of patching next Tuesday. We will post detailed information once the patches are released by Microsoft and Adobe.