Patch Tuesday: New At-a-Glance Known Issues

We told you a bit earlier about the 14 security updates delivering today. Without the Advance Notification we had become accustomed to, it's like going to sleep in January and not waking up until December with a stocking full of coal. Amid the updates today, you'll find security fixes for various things, some you wouldn't have thought like PNG images, an Adobe Font Driver, and the Photo Decoder. You'll really want to invest some time in reviewing the fixes included this month. Since Microsoft no longer provides free advanced warning for pending updates, I'd take extra time to really understand what's included.

To help get up-to-speed quicker, Microsoft has included a new "Known Issues" column on the Bulletin Summary page. The Known Issues column provides KB article numbers and links for those items that you might need to take extra time to understand implications for installing.

There are three bulletins with known issues to watch out for this month. They are:

MS15-022 Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Could Allow Remote Code Execution - 3038999 – This one's tough. It contains links to an additional 35 or more KB articles to read, all with potential known issues for each Office product. Microsoft didn't make this one easy.

MS15-025 Vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel Could Allow Elevation of Privilege - 3038680 – the KB article is not yet available. Let's hope it is soon considering its part of the Known Issues category.

MS15-031 Vulnerability in Schannel Could Allow Security Feature Bypass - 3046049 – Microsoft suggests undoing the workaround provided in Microsoft Security Advisory 3046015 before applying this update or Internet services will stop working.