News

Patch Tuesday To Address Four Critical Issues

Microsoft plans to roll out just four "critical" fixes in September's security bulletin release expected on Tuesday, according to an advance notice.

• By Jabulani Leffall
• 09/04/2008

All four fixes deal with remote code execution (RCE) exploits. The patch addresses vulnerabilities in Windows Media Player 11, Windows Media Encoder, Microsoft Office and various components and versions of the Windows operating system.

First up is an RCE exploit plug for Windows Media Player 11, the popular streaming video, audio and digital content streamer. The issue affects Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows XP Service Pack 3, all versions of Vista and Windows Server 2008.

The second fix applies to Windows XP, Vista and multiple versions of Windows Server 2003 and 2008. It also touches Internet Explorer 6 and Microsoft .NET Framework versions 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0 on Windows 2000 SP4.

Fix No. 3 is for Windows Media Encoder 9 Series, a program designed to help digital content developers capture, convert and edit both live and prerecorded audio, video or still images. The corresponding OS versions pertaining to this patch are Windows 2000 SP4, all editions of XP, Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.

Last, but certainly not least, Microsoft plans to include a comprehensive RCE exploit fix for several versions of Microsoft Office. The fixes are for Microsoft Office XP SP3, Microsoft Office 2003 SP2 and SP3, plus Microsoft Office 2007. Also included for this bulletin is Microsoft Office OneNote 2007, a note-taking application for meetings.

As usual, Microsoft plans to release nonsecurity updates. Examples include reliability and operational updates for Windows Vista. A fix is also planned for a problem with Windows Server 2008's Hyper-V Volume Shadow Copy Service, which is a virtual machine backup program.

The advance notification is not the final word. However, it's usually a reasonable indication as to what's coming for this month's Patch Tuesday.