IDG Contributor Network: Setting the update scene for September Patch Tuesday

September can bring unsettled weather and likewise a large variation in the number of Microsoft updates. For this September Patch Tuesday, we see a moderate update, with 12 patches, five rated as critical and the remaining seven rated as important. To put this month's release in context, we saw Microsoft release four updates in September 2014, but a whopping 14 updates in September 2013. This month we are seeing significant and critical updates to both Microsoft Internet Explorer and the new Edge browser. Last year, I suspected that the patch team had a nice break in August. This year it looks like there’s been no such let-up in activity.

MS15-094 — Critical

The first update rated as critical by Microsoft for this September Patch Tuesday is MS15-094, which attempts to resolve 17 vulnerabilities in Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE). These issues at worst may lead to a remote code execution scenario where IE may not handle VBScript and JScript objects in memory correctly, leading to an attacker achieving the same rights and privileges as the logged on user. This, like previous IE attempts to resolve multiple memory corruption issues, will require a complete update to all downloaded IE desktop code. This is a "Patch Now" Microsoft update.

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