Microsoft Patch Tuesday: 16 Patches

In preparation for a slew of security patches, Microsoft urged users to prepare for testing and rolling out the patches as soon as they become available.

After busy security events in recent months, Microsoft is again readying a slew of patches for release on Tuesday — 16 of them overall with four rated “critical.”

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) made the disclosures in its regular advance notice that it publishes the Thursday prior to its monthly Patch Tuesday security patch release.

The advance notice is meant to give security administrators at Microsoft customer businesses an indication of how much work they will need to do after the company releases its security bulletins on the second Tuesday of each month.

On the critical list this month are holes in Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) — the only currently supported version of XP at this point — as well as in various editions of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 and 2008. Further, all four patches are ranked as critical for Windows 7.

Read the rest at eSecurity Planet.