Microsoft is slated to roll out ten security patches today for the company’s May 2013 Patch Tuesday. Of the ten security patches, two are rated critical while the other eight are rated important.
Windows 8 will see one critical update along with three important updates. Windows RT, on the other hand, will see one critical update along with two important updates and one moderate update. Microsoft’s Office productivity suite and Lync will also see a security update to address remote code execution.
The majority of the updates deal with remote code execution as well as elevation of privileges for all versions of Internet Explorer. However, one notable flaw made the news recently involving the US Department of Labor. According to several security firms, Chinese hackers are using this zero-day bug in IE8 to target nuclear weapons researchers running Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system.
Microsoft has yet to release an official patch but a temporary fit-it patch was released. We will likely see this patch later this month, if not a little sooner, but there is no permanent fix for this issue during today’s Patch Tuesday.
Expect to see these updates available via Windows Update today! If you have automatic updates enabled, then don’t worry, you will automatically download these updates. A reboot will be required.
Update: Microsoft has rolled out a permanent patch for the IE8 exploit, used by Chinese hackers, as part of Patch Tuesday for May of 2013.
Further reading: Microsoft, Patch Tuesday, Security
