Microsoft to release eight bulletins on Tuesday

Tuesday, May 13 marks the next Microsoft security patch release. This release will contain eight bulletins, which is the most in a single release so far this year. The good news is that each of these bulletins only address a few CVEs at most.

This release will address vulnerabilities in SharePoint, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows. Only the bulletins for SharePoint and Internet Explorer are rated “Critical”; the rest of the bulletins are rated as “Important”.

Even though Microsoft released an out-of-band security patch for Internet Explorer under Windows XP (MS14-021 or CVE-2014-1776), it looks like they are keeping their word to end-of-life the thirteen year old operating system. If you’re running Windows XP, you will not be receiving any updates this patch cycle even though at least half of the bulletins affect the platform. This includes a new critical vulnerability in Internet Explorer.

It is also likely that this security bulletin will include vulnerabilities seen exploited in the wild and those running Windows XP will be out of luck. The operating system still represents approximately thirty percent of all Windows users. If you haven’t upgraded yet, it’s a good time now!

Author: Karl Sigler, Threat Intelligence Manager at Trustwave.