Critical IE update in biggest ever Patch Tuesday
Internet Explorer? Is that thing still around?
Microsoft released a bumper total of 17 bulletins on Tuesday - collectively addressing a total of 40 software security vulnerabilities - as part of its largest ever Patch Tuesday update.
Only two of the patch batch earn the dread rating of critical. One critical fix (MS10-090) addresses five critical flaws in Internet Explorer, some of which have been used in anger in hacking attacks. All currently supported versions of IE will need patching.
A new CSS vulnerability in IE, reported on a full disclosure mailing list last week, remains unpatched.
The second critical fix (MS10-091) tackles a bug in font handling, which poses a code execution bug on newer versions of Windows and a lesser privilege escalation flaw on Windows XP.
The remaining patches (14 Important and one Moderate) include a fix that takes care of the last remaining unpatched vulnerability exploited by the infamous Stuxnet worm (an important privilege escalation bug involving Task Scheduler).
The December edition of Microsoft's regular Patch Tuesday update broke numerous records, according to Symantec.
Joshua Talbot, security intelligence manager, Symantec Security Response, commented: "Seventeen bulletins are the most ever issued in a single month.
"Also, Microsoft has now released 106 security bulletins in 2010 – the first time topping the century mark since the Patch Tuesday program began. The next closest was 78 in 2006 and 2008.
"Finally, by Symantec’s count Microsoft far surpassed the number of vulnerabilities patched in a single year with 261. The previous record was 170 set last year."
The Internet Storm Centre's graphical overview of the monster patch batch can be found here. Microsoft's advisory is here. ®
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COMMENTS
Its all fixed in the new version
Don't have to worry about security in win7. MS fixed it. First they renamed all the folders and common locations to be other locations, then did that again two times for luck. Then they hid them so the bad guys won't know where the hell anything is. Oh and the 32bit stuff is under the title 64 and visa versa. (goes with those american backwards dates and 3am auto install setting I suppose).
So its totally brillant, most fantastic piece of software I've ever used. Every day I just get up and think wow yay for hiding all the useful stuff behind smokscreens, it is now super cool fantastic.
Incorrect statistical model
Well, yes, there is a problem with the introduction of new bugs with the patches, but that is only a side effect of the fundamentally overly complex design of the software. The real problem here is that the fixed bugs only represent an essentially random sample of the total bug population. By studying the history of the origins of the repaired bugs, we can be quite confident that there are many other bugs that have not yet been found--at least not by anyone who wanted to say anything about them.
The root cause is still Microsoft's vision of software as a weapon, not a tool. If your goal is to destroy your competitors, then of course you make your weapons as massive and powerful as possible.
The result is we have little old grandmothers who just want to do some email and a bit of websurfing, but Microsoft insists they have an OS that does FAR more than that. It's like shopping for a small car, but the dealer insists on selling you a high-speed super-combat tank with a built-in restaurant. That's bad enough, but granny doesn't know enough to avoid giving the keys to the first blackhat hacker who can convince her to click on the wrong link...
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