Microsoft’s latest Patch Tuesday release offers a long list of useful security updates for all supported Windows versions and Microsoft products. September 12th’s release consisted of as many as 94 individual security updates, 85 of which are designed to correct unique security issues across various Windows operating systems and Microsoft applications.
Patches for a number of third party applications have also been released over September, including updates for several Adobe products such as Adobe Air, Shockwave, Flash Player (ActiveX and Plugin & PPAPI). Apple Application support was also update, along with other Apple services, such as Apple Mobile Device Support and iTunes. Google Chrome’s version 61.0.3163.91 was released on September 15. Other notable updates for the month of September include Opera’s latest version release, as well as Ultra VNC server and viewer patches.
Still one of the biggest and most serious IT security news since it was made public in May, the Equifax data breach, which compromises one of the largest credit reporting agencies in the United States remains a huge issue for the company. The breach potentially exposes credit card and social security numbers, on top of other important personal information of up to 143 million Americans, while illegally accessing data of some 400,000 UK residents. Unlike US consumers, however, only the names, email addresses, telephone numbers, and birth dates were stolen from the Brits, not including government ID numbers and postal addresses. It was revealed recently that the breach is rooted in a known flaw in the Apache software package, for which a fix was discovered in March, but Equifax failed to apply the patch to its system by May—the reported time of the incident.
Avoiding huge data breaches is a matter of keeping up-to-date with security patches and fixes released by software manufacturers. This is why it is critical that you keep an eye on these releases whenever they are scheduled to happen. The next Microsoft Patch Day is scheduled on October 10, 2017.
