Patch Tuesday April 2019: April showers bring torrents of security patches for your small business.
Patch Tuesday April 2019
Patch Tuesday is that day of the month when numerous software companies release their security updates. It’s always the 2nd Tuesday of the month. Be sure to schedule time to update all your devices once a month.
Microsoft Mayhem
Microsoft released patches for over 70 flaws in their products and then promptly pulled some of them. Patches released on Tuesday April 9th borked computers running Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008 and 2012 that use Sophos or Avast antivirus products.
Lest Windows 10 users get smug about this remember the next major update for Windows 10 is due out in early May. Given how many problems there were with the October major update (that was pulled and re-released three times), I recommend waiting for at least a week before installing the May update. You can postpone major updates from Settings, Update and Security, Advanced Options.
Besides operating system patches, there were also updates for all version of Office including Office for Mac.
Hot Flash
Another month, another hot Flash security update. Adobe also showered security patches on Adobe Acrobat and Reader, InDesign, Dreamweaver and Bridge CC.
The Adobe Acrobat patches fix very serious security problems.
And Shockwave. Anyone still use Shockwave? Best to uninstall that sad software rather than run the update.
More details on the Adobe updates and Microsoft updates here.
WordPress Updates
WordPress 5.2 is expected by the end of this month. There are security updates and improvements to the block editor. That block editor was released in version 5.0 and was responsible for breaking a lot of themes. If you want more info (including sreenshots) go to What’s Coming in WordPress 5.2.
There’s also lots of updates to all the popular WordPress plugins: Akismet spam blocker, JetPack, Yoast SEO and the usual suspects.
Android Updates
Android security updates were released April 3rd. Several serious security problems were patched. This blog will give you more details and also how to update your phone.
Patch Tuesday April 2019: an ounce of patching is cheaper than a pound of hacking.
