Microsoft Office

Microsoft released 73 updates to its Windows, Office, and Visual Studio platforms on Patch Tuesday, with many of them dealing with core, but not urgent, security vulnerabilities. That’s a welcome respite from the previous six months of urgent zero-days and public disclosures. With that in mind, the Readiness testing team suggests a focus on printing and backup/recovery processes to make sure they’re not affected by this update cycle.

For the first time, we see a (non-Adobe) third-party vendor added to a Patch Tuesday release, with three minor plugin updates to Visual Studio for AutoDesk. Expect to see more such vendors added to Microsoft’s updates in the near future. The team at Readiness has created a useful infographic that outlines the risks associated with each of the updates.

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In it’s May update, Microsoft addressed 51 vulnerabilities in Windows, Microsoft Office, and Visual Studio. And with three zero-day flaws to urgently address in Windows (CVE-2023-24932, CVE-2023-29325 and CVE-2023-29336), the focus this month needs to be on rapidly updating both Windows and Microsoft Office. Both platforms get our “Patch Now” recommendation.

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Microsoft has addressed 97 existing vulnerabilities this April Patch Tuesday, with a further eight previously released patches updated and re-released. There have been reports of a vulnerability (CVE-2023-28252) exploited in the wild, making it a “Patch Now” release.

This update cycle affects Windows desktops, Microsoft Office, and Adobe Reader. No updates for Microsoft Exchange this month. The team at Application Readiness has provided a helpful infographic that outlines the risks associated with each of the updates for this April update cycle.

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The first Patch Tuesday of the year from Microsoft addresses 98 security vulnerabilities, with 10 classified as critical for Windows. One vulnerability (CVE-2023-21674) in a core section of Windows code is a zero-day that requires immediate attention. And Adobe has returned with a critical update, paired with a few low-profile patches for the Microsoft Edge browser.

We have added the Windows and Adobe updates to our “Patch Now” list, recognizing that this month’s patch deployments will require significant testing and engineering effort. The team at Application Readiness has provided a helpful infographic that outlines the risks associated with each of the updates for this January update cycle.

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Microsoft on Tuesday released a tightly focused but still significant update that addresses 68 reported (some publicly) vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, this month brings a new record: six zero-day flaws affecting Windows. As a result, we have added both the Windows and Exchange Server updates to our “Patch Now” schedule. Microsoft also published a “defense in depth” advisory (ADV220003) to help secure Office deployments. And there are a small number of Visual Studio, Word, and Excel updates to add to your standard patch release schedule.

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