Adobe Changes Its Patch Schedule, Delays by a Week

Several years back, Adobe chose to deliver its monthly updates the same day as Microsoft. Since Adobe's products like Flash and Acrobat are tied so closely to Internet Explorer, it made sense for businesses to test and deliver at the same time.

It's happened before and it's rare, but this month Adobe has chosen to delay its patch delivery by a week. Citing problems during regression testing, September's patches from Adobe will now release the week of September 15, 2014. To be sure, Adobe's products are considered some of the easiest to hack, but it's a good sign to see the company is waiting to ensure its fixes are stable before release. It's a very responsible and refreshing action.

So, next week Adobe plans to deliver critical security updates for Acrobat and Reader for Windows and Macintosh systems.

More information can be found in Adobe Security Bulletin: APSB14-20

That doesn't mean you're out of the woods today, by any means. Microsoft is still delivering it's reported 4 security updates today, affecting Windows, IE, and Lync. Of course, most companies don’t patch right away, and as is being reported in our survey, many companies have altered their patching policies due to the perception that Microsoft's updates quality has degraded severely. Would it be great to see Microsoft make such a determination?

"We've found problems with our updates. We're delaying until we fix them."