The second Tuesday of every month – Patch Tuesday – is a “hurry up and wait” day for me. Because I’m in the U.S. Central Standard Time zone, Microsoft’s security update release doesn’t occur until noon my time. Then I have to scramble to get my monthly summary of the patches for TechRepublic finished by the 3:00 p.m. deadline. So, like many corporate network admins, I hope for as few patches as possible (albeit for a different reason).
We didn’t get our wish this month. Instead, Microsoft delivered an early Valentine’s Day gift consisting of 12 security updates that address a whopping 57 vulnerabilities – most in Windows client and server operating systems and Internet Explorer. A few of the vulnerabilities affect every single currently supported version of Windows, from XP to RT and everything in between. Ouch.
For more information about the updates, check out my article here:
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/its-microsoft-patch-tuesday-february-2013/7249