Microsoft delivers a dozen patches for Valentine's Day

By Stan Beer
Tuesday, 13 February 2007 13:50

Home IT

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Microsoft is planning to release a big gift for IT administrators on Patch Tuesday - a dozen security bulletins with nine classified as critical and three judged as important.

{mosloadpsoition stan}Five of the critical bulletins address Microsoft Windows, two affect Microsoft Office, one affects Data Access Components Technology and one affects Microsoft's new malware solution, Windows Live OneCare.

According to security patch and vulnerability management solutions provider PatchLink, the fact that at least five of the vulnerabilities target the Microsoft applications indicates that hackers are moving up the application stack to focus less on attacking the operating system and exploiting the application layer.

PatchLink predicts that hackers with profit in mind will increasingly target applications beyond Microsoft platforms.

“With such a hefty burden this month, IT administrators need to put security first,” said Chris Wood, PatchLink ANZ sales director. “Organisations will need to have a solid vulnerability management process in place if they want to test and deploy the bulletins released tomorrow without disrupting any Valentine's Day plans.”