14 Security holes to be patched by Microsoft next Week

Microsoft today alleged it will patch at least 14 vulnerabilities in the patch Tuesday update next week, including four in Internet Explorer (IE), making it three months in a row that the company has secured holes in its web browser.

Of the nine updates arranged for Aug. 14, five will be tagged as “critical,” the most dangerous of the four ratings Microsoft applies. The additional four will be labled as “important,” the next-lower threat ranking.

The IE update will be the third in three months for the browser: Microsoft also patched IE in June and July.

Microsoft will release the nine updates at approximately 1 p.m. ET on Aug 14.

A even larger story for next week will be the distribution of patches for Exchange and SQL Server.

“Those are two of the three things that are most important to IT in enterprises,” said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security. “Thank goodness SharePoint’s not included. But Microsoft is hitting two out of three in just one month.”

In the advanced notification of next week’s updates, Microsoft outlined patches for Exchange, the email server software used by most companies, and SQL Server, the database that runs many corporations’ internal and external processes, including powering websites and providing workers with everything from business intelligence to financial information.  The problem with patching those systems — Exchange and SQL Server — is their criticality to business, said Storms.