Patch Tuesday January 2023: new year brings new security updates for your small business.
Why patch? Doesn’t antivirus protect my computer? If you’re not sure why you should do updates, read my small business patch primer. Then find out more about this month’s patches below.
Adobe Action
Adobe is no longer missing in patch action. This month Adobe released security updates for Acrobat and Reader, as well as InDesign on January 10th. The Acrobat and Reader patches apply to both Mac and Windows computers. Some more details on the Acrobat and Reader patches here.
Something Adobe updated but didn’t really tell you about is by default they are now slurping your pictures into their AI art project. To change that setting, log into your Adobe account. Next go to Account and Security. Then click on Privacy and Personal Data. From there you can turn off Adobe analyzing your content. See picture below.
Apple Chips
Apple added two interesting items to their security this month. First they added the ability to use a security key with your iCloud account. Second they added the ability to push out urgent security updates to Mac computers outside of the normal patch cycle. More details on these changes here.
Apple released updates for all their products on the 23rd. Complete list of January Apple security updates here.
Browser Action
Did you know that unless you close your internet browser it won’t get security updates? I know a lot of users like to open tons of tabs and leave the browser open all the time. You need to close the browser for Chrome, Opera, Edge or Firefox to get security patches and feature updates.
Microsoft Mayhem
Every month Microsoft release more mayhem with their updates. This month saw their fancy pants Microsoft 365 Defender product decide that Office software and Edge browser were malicious (no, really, giggle) and blocked those applications from running. Next Microsoft pushed out a patch to all Windows computers (regardless of whether you’re using Microsoft Defender) that mucked up desktops. Sigh.
You still need to run Windows updates. I recommend you wait a few days for Microsoft to issue patches for the patches.
Full details on this month’s Microsoft patches and more here.
An ounce of patching is cheaper than a pound of hacking.
