Patch Tuesday September 2017: lots of patching this month for your small business and the big stars today are Office and .net framework brought to you by Microsoft.
Oh my Office!
This Patch Tuesday Microsoft issued security patches for Office 2016 for Mac and Office 2011 and individual patches for Excel 2016 and Excel 2011 for Mac.
Microsoft also issued patches for Office 2010 and even Office 2007. Microsoft doesn’t really officially support those older versions of Office. My guess is that they’re patching something incredibly nasty that affects some really big clients who haven’t upgraded yet.
All the current versions of Office (2016 and 2013) have patches as well.
What is this .net framework?
What is this .net framework and why should you care? It’s a huge part of the code underneath a lot of software written for Windows. This includes things such as Quickbooks, FilePro, WordPerfect, etc. and of course Office.
The vulnerability patched today is already being used by hackers. That’s why this update (and I suspect the Office updates) are so urgent.
The .net framework patches come with the Windows updates so you don’t have to do anything special beyond installing your Windows updates as soon as possible.
More about this .net framework vulnerability here.
Windows and other Microsoft woes
Windows 10, 8.1 (remember the tiles?) and 7 received security updates today. Also Server 2008, 2012 and even 2016. The new(ish) Edge browser and Internet Explorer versions 10 and 11 also received critical updates.
Hot Flash
Another month, another hot Flash Adobe update. On the bright side Adobe announced they were officially putting Flash out of everyone’s misery in 2019.
If you’re running Firefox or Internet Explorer, you need to get the update here. Be sure to uncheck whatever crapware Adobe has bundled with it.
The Flash update for Edge is part of your Windows update. Chrome users get their update from Google as part of their browser automatically.
Apple Updates
Part of the #AppleEvent today included details on the new iOS 11. The new iOS will be available for your iThingys September 19th.
Buried in the Apple hoopla today, a new iTunes, version 12.7 for both Windows and Mac was released today. No details on what that update includes (or breaks) yet.
Keep track of Apple updates here.
Remember an ounce of patching prevents a pound of hacking.
