Microsoft readies mini Patch Tuesday

Security

IT departments will at least get a break from major Microsoft patching this month, as the Redmond giant listed only six bulletins in its Patch Tuesday for March.

Just one of those is critical, with four important and one ranked as moderate. The critical one allows for remote code execution, as does one of the important updates.

Others allow for elevation of privilege and denial of service. They all affect each supported iteration of Windows.

"While 6 bulletins represents a light load of patches, this Tuesday will be disruptive in terms of required reboots," said Paul Henry, security and forensic analyst at Lumension.

IT managers can find the official Microsoft advisory here.

While 6 bulletins represents a light load of patches, this Tuesday will be disruptive in terms of required reboots.

Whilst the Microsoft load might be light, IT departments still have plenty of other software to patch. Adobe issued an update on 6 March, affecting Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Solaris and Google's Android OS.

The patch corrects two issues that could allow a hacker to take over the affected device.

"It should be noted that it was only 20 days ago that IT was dealing with the last Adobe patch," Henry added.

IT staff may also want to ensure their iPhones and iPads are up to date, as the iOS 5.1 release announced earlier this week fixes over 80 vulnerability issues.