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MS-DEFCON 2:
Patch reliability is unclear. Unless you have an immediate, pressing need to install a specific patch, don't do it.
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MS-DEFCON 4: Time to get the patches applied – and by the way…
Posted on July 4th, 2012 at 20:54 15 commentsIt looks like the June Black Tuesday patches have stabilized. I suggest you go ahead and install all outstanding Microsoft patches.
You may have problems with the .NET patches – heaven knows, we always seem to. Susan Bradley suggests in her latest Windows Secrets column that if you have .NET 4 patching failures, go to KB 2698555 and download and run Microsoft’s latest .NET repair tool.
Just as important, if you haven’t yet updated Secunia PSI to version 3, get to their web site and install it. PSI, as you may know, is a marvelous, free-for-personal-use utility that scans all of the programs on your PC and tells you which ones need patching. In this latest version, you can tell PSI to automatically install updates as they appear, and that’s precisely what I recommend. Let PSI do the heavy lifting for everything except Microsoft patches.
Hope you all had/have/were having/will be having a great fourth – no matter where you live. You Brits have even more to be thankful about than us Yanks. You don’t have to deal with American politics any more…
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MS-DEFCON 2: Make sure your auto updates are locked down
Posted on June 12th, 2012 at 10:34 4 commentsWe have a huge bunch of patches coming: seven security bulletins patching 25 separately identified holes.
In addition, Microsoft is, uh, patching the patcher. In other words, Windows Update Services itself will be patched – in response to the amazing revelations about Flame and subverted root certificates.
Bottom line: now’s a good time to make sure you have Windows (and Microsoft) Automatic Update turned OFF.
I’m moving us up to MS-DEFCON 2: Patch reliability is unclear. Unless you have an immediate, pressing need to install a specific patch, don’t do it.
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