Patch Tuesday: Installation Recommendations for July 2015

This will be a busy month for Patch administrators.

Microsoft this month has supplied 14 updates as part of its regular Patch Tuesday event. Five of these are rated as Critical. One of the updates, MS15-070, has already been reported to have an exploit in the wild. This update resolves a vulnerability in Microsoft Office.

The instructions to exploit another Critical update, MS15-077, which resolves an ATM Font Driver, have already been publicly disclosed. It's also being reported that MS15-065 is now being actively exploited.

It's recommended that you observe the Critical updates first and work down from there. These are particularly important to install quickly to avoid disruptions.

Additionally, MS15-058 has shown up this month. It was passed over in June because it wasn't ready. It is an update for SQL Server.

In response to newly reported flaws in Adobe's Flash application, expect updates for Internet Explorer to show up soon. Adobe is scrambling to provide updates for all modern web browsers, some of which have already surfaced. The Flash issue is interesting, as the demise of Flash is something IT administrators have been calling for since the application was released. Adobe products continue to be the single biggest security weakness for PCs. An update to the Firefox browser has released that now blocks Flash by default.