Actually from an operational standpoint it does make a difference, because with 17 patches the QA and testing is going to take a bit longer than with just two patches. And due to the number of items that these set of patches fixes ( 64 bugs) there is a lot of potential for disruption of operations if things don't go smoothly.
Actually when you look at it from a risk prospective, the type of patches released and the attack surface you have within your companies/organization also ties into how quickly you need to role these out, or if you have to role them out at all, and what priority/timeline they are addressed at. That is why a risk assessment of what is affected by the flaws fixed with these patches should be done each and every month and a priority set on the patches to be deployed based on the finding of the risk assessment ( Yes I do this every month, its good exercise, and justifies come audit time why the priority for some patches are ahead of others even though one is critical and one is important/moderate) I can agree that a lot of folks doing full QA the patches coming out each month from Microsoft, and some of the early adopters do run into some trouble as we see from time to time on the Patch Management list. Just food for thought, Z Edward E. Ziots CISSP, Network +, Security + Network Engineer Lifespan Organization Email:[email protected] Cell:401-639-3505 -----Original Message----- From: Brian Desmond [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, April 08, 2011 12:16 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: 17 Patches coming out from Microsoft this month. I can never figure this out. What's the difference to you whether they ship 2 patches or 17? This seems like just your basic sensational headline to me. It's the same deployment effort. I doubt you're fully qualifying each patch individually and communally in a full test environment where you'd see substantial increase in test overhead. Thanks, Brian Desmond [email protected] c - 312.731.3132 -----Original Message----- From: Ziots, Edward [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 3:35 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: 17 Patches coming out from Microsoft this month. Cross post from Susan Bradley on the Patch Management List. Strap on your seat-belts folks its going to be a bumpy ride this month. Advance Notification Service for the April 2011 Bulletin Release - MSRC - Site Home - TechNet Blogs: http://blogs.technet.com/b/msrc/archive/2011/04/07/advance-notification- service-for-the-april-2011-bulletin-release.aspx My name is Pete Voss, and I'm a senior response communications manager with Microsoft Trustworthy Computing. I'll be joining the rest of the team on the MSRC blog <http://blogs.technet.com/b/msrc/> and @MSFTSecResponse <http://twitter.com/#%21/msftsecresponse/> Twitter handle to help provide you with the latest information and guidance for Microsoft security. Today, we're providing advanced notification <http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms11-apr.mspx> on the release of 17 security bulletins, nine rated Critical and eight rated Important. This month's bulletin release will address 64 vulnerabilities across Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, Visual Studio, .NET Framework and GDI+. This month we'll be closing some issues that Microsoft has already previously spoken to, including the SMB Browser (Critical) issue publicly disclosed Feb. 15. Microsoft assessed the situation and reported <http://blogs.technet.com/b/srd/archive/2011/02/16/notes-on-exploitabili ty-of-the-recent-windows-browser-protocol-issue.aspx> that although the vulnerability could theoretically allow Remote Code Execution, that was extremely unlikely. To this day, we have seen no evidence of attacks. We are also planning a fix for the MHTML vulnerability in Windows, rated Important. We alerted people to this issue with Security Advisory 2501696 <http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/2501696.mspx> (including a Fix-It that fully protected customers once downloaded) back in late January. In March, we updated the advisory to let people know we were aware of limited, targeted attacks. The bulletin release scheduled for the second Tuesday of the month, April 12, at approximately 10 a.m. PDT. Come back to this blog then for our official risk and impact analysis, as well as deployment guidance and a brief video overview of the month's highlights. Meanwhile, customers are encouraged to review Microsoft's advanced notification <http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms11-apr.mspx> and assess it for their particular environment. Additionally, we recommend that administrators reference our Security Update Guide <http://www.microsoft.com/security/msrc/whatwedo/securityguide.aspx> for help preparing for the bulletin release. The monthly technical webcast is scheduled for Wednesday, April 13, hosted by Jerry Bryant and Jonathan Ness. I invite you to tune in and learn more about the security bulletins. The webcast is scheduled for Wednesday, April 13, 2011 at 11 a.m. PDT, and the registration can be found here <https://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en- US&EventID=1032327018&CountryCode=US>. For all the latest information, you can also follow the MSRC team on Twitter at @MSFTSecResponse <http://www.twitter.com/msftsecresponse>. Edward E. Ziots CISSP, Network +, Security + Network Engineer Lifespan Organization Email:[email protected] Cell:401-639-3505 ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
