June 2014 Patch Tuesday takes place today and Microsoft will be rolling out seven security bulletins for all sorts of products, including Internet Explorer, Windows, and some Office and Server components. Two of the bulletins are rated Critical, while three address Remote Code Execution.
The first bulletin addresses all versions of Internet Explorer, including Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1. This patch is important and should not be skipped. Interestingly enough, Microsoft makes no mention if Windows XP is affected by this bulletin, since Windows XP ended support back in April.
The second bulletin affects Windows, Office, and Lync. “It must be in a component that is present separately in all three software packages. In addition it is rated only “important” in Office, indicating that it is a file-based vulnerability. Our bet is on a graphics format vulnerability, but we will see next Tuesday. Keep an eye on this one,” security firm Qualys stated in an official blog post.
The third bulletin addresses a file format based vulnerability and affects Word 2007 and likely Word 2003, but does not affect newer versions of Office. The remaining bulletins affect Windows and Lync Server and are all rated “important”.
Windows 8.1 receives a total of five security fixes during today’s Patch Tuesday, two of which are rated Critical and three are rated Important.
These updates will roll out today at approximately 10AM PST.
Further reading: Microsoft, Patch Tuesday, Security
