Ah, the satisfying feeling of reading about upcoming Patch Tuesday updates! This month the security fixes become all the more important considering Microsoft is planning to patch the recently discovered Internet Explorer vulnerability.
October started on Tuesday, meaning the second Tuesday of the month will be upon us soon. And expectedly, the company has revealed its advanced summary for October earlier today.
A total of eight bulletins are expected — four of which are labeled as Critical.
One of the Critical fixes is for the aforementioned Internet Explorer exploit that is affecting all versions of the browsers. Microsoft already released a Fix It tool for this pesky little problem (which cybercriminals are already exploiting), and now it will be pushed via Windows Update to all users.
And since this exploit is also present on Internet Explorer 11, Redmond has decided to release this update for the latest version of its browser on Windows 8.1, Windows RT 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2, ahead of their official launch.
All three operating systems are officially set to see daylight on October 18, just for the record.
But the newest versions of Windows are not the only one in the frame. Windows XP, the ancient OS that will cease to be supported some six months from now, has three of the four Critical fixes to its name.
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Service Pack 2 will be eligible for all four Critical updates, and the same goes for Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.
Windows RT is in line to get two Critical updates, and one labeled as Important.
As is always the case, these summaries do not go into specific details behind these updates, so as not to alert hackers and cybercriminals. But we should have more information on these patches before they go live on Tuesday, October 8.
