February 2012 Patch Tuesday: 9 Bulletins, 21 Vulnerabilities

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 10 Feb 2012

Microsoft has just announced that this February, as part of the Patch Tuesday program, it will roll out a grand total of 9 security bulletins to all customers all over the world. The aforementioned bulletins will plug a total of 21 vulnerabilities that plague the Microsoft Windows operating system, the Microsoft Office productivity suite, the Internet Explorer web browser, and the .NET framework, and the Microsoft Silverlight application framework.

Out of the 9 bulletins that will be released on the 14th of February (they’re usually released at around 10AM PST), 4 carry the “critical” rating and could lead to remote code execution and the remaining 5 carry the “important” rating; they could also lead to remote code execution, and elevation of privilege. Additional information on the bulletins is available in the Advance Notification that Microsoft has just released (check it out by clicking here).

As a little reminder, Microsoft uses the dreaded “critical” rating, its most severe rating, when it comes across a vulnerability whose exploitation could allow the propagation of an Internet worm without user action. The “important” rating is used by the Redmond-based software giant when it deals with a vulnerability whose exploitation could result in compromise of the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of users data, or of the integrity or availability of processing resources.

The bottom line is that on Tuesday, the 14th of February, Microsoft will release 9 security bulletins (4 critical, 5 important) that will fix 21 vulnerabilities that affect Windows, Office, Internet Explorer, .NET, and Silverlight. An advance notification has been posted online here.

On a lighter note, the 14th of February is Valentine’s Day. Besides getting several Windows 7 themes to decorate your desktop, you could take part in Microsoft's Valentine’s Day Sweepstakes and have the chance to win a pink Sony VAIO Y laptop.



Latest News


Sony's 'Attack of the Blockbusters Sale' Slashes Prices in Half for a Ton of PS4 Games

17 Aug 2017

How Samsung's New T5 Compares to the Old T3 Portable SSD (Infographic)

17 Aug 2017

See all