Microsoft's Monthly "Critical" Patches

Last week, Microsoft announced a plan to move to monthly dispatch of updates. Today, the software giant issued five patches, four of which rate "critical," which is the highest ranking. The updates are the first in Microsoft's monthly group of consolidated patch releases.

Additionally, Microsoft issued two security alerts for Exchange Server; one of these is critical.

Information on the Windows patches can be found here. The identified security vulnerabilities affect various versions of Windows.

While Windows customers should take all five security vulnerabilities seriously, I would like to draw attention to the one outlined in bulletin MS03-043. That's because Microsoft recommends that "customers should disable the Messenger Service immediately and evaluate their need to deploy the patch." My advice: Take Microsoft's advice.

The Exchange Server security alerts can be found here. The critical alert warns of a SMTP flaw, where a carefully crafted e-mail could bring down the mail server.

Posted by Joe Wilcox at October 15, 2003 03:53 PM