Nine fixes for Patch Tuesday

 

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By Nicole Kobie

Posted on 7 Aug 2009 at 11:42

Microsoft will issue nine security patches next Tuesday, with eight of them affecting Windows.

Five of the fixes for Windows have been tagged as critical by Microsoft - the company's highest threat level. The other three are rated important, the next level down on the scale.

The last bulletin is for a flaw in Microsoft Office's Web Components, which was reported last month. The critical patch affects Microsoft Office, Visual Studio, ISA Server and BizTalk.

"After a summer of heavier-than-normal Patch Tuesdays, the last thing IT workers need next Tuesday is yet another large batch of patches from Microsoft," says Paul Henry, security and forensic analyst at Lumension.

He warns that anyone using Microsoft's ISA server should pay attention to this patch: "One of Microsoft's security products, Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) server, appears to have a hole that's critical on all versions," he says.

"Therefore, companies that are actively using this product as part of their security infrastructure will need to patch this vulnerability immediately."

The patch will be delivered by autoupdate or be available to download on 11 August.

Microsoft issued a pair of out-of-band patches last week, to fix flaws in Internet Explorer and Visual Studio.