Light Patch Tuesday coming up

2014 is getting off to a light start with Microsoft. Only four advisories in the January advance notification.

For the first time in a while, there is not a cumulative IE roll up patch. This must be an indication that the IE team was finally allowed to take some time off over the holidays in light of the grueling 2013 they put in. Expect them back in February, no doubt.

The second bulletin, likely MS14-002, will address the somewhat awaited kernel elevation of privilege issues known as CVE-2013-5065, which was reported and disclosed back in November with some limited exploitation in the wild. The issue only affects Windows XP and 2003 systems, but if you are running those I would consider this something to patch quickly.

The third bulletin is another elevation of privilege issue affecting Windows 7 and 2008, so if you dodged a bullet with CVE-2013-5065, you are still impacted by this one. No getting out of it this month.

The fourth bulletin is a denial of service in the seldom seen Microsoft Dynamics product. This is about as marginal a concern as you can get to in terms of MS advisories.

It’s a pretty easy prioritization this month. Patch MS14-001, then whichever of 002 or 003 apply to you. Patch the DoS in MS Dynamics when you are really bored sometime-¦ no, just kidding. If you have Dynamics in your environment, don’t overlook it. It’s the type of system where downtime can have a material cost to your business.

Author: Ross Barrett, Senior Manager, Security Engineering, Rapid7.