IE fixed as usual in Patch Tuesday release

Browser should be treated as special case, say some.

The February ‘Patch Tuesday’ security bulletin from

Microsoft

this week contained four patches, two of them marked ‘Critical’, of which one was a ‘cumulative’ set of fixes for a selection of problems with the

Internet Explorer

browser.

With flaws in the ubiquitous web-surfing tool a regular fixture in the monthly patch cycle, it has been suggested by some security watchers that

MS

would be better off separating the browser from the standard monthly patch release pattern, to ensure best possible coverage of the frequent and often severe security flaws being found in it.

This month’s batch of updates also included a vital patch for some serious vulnerabilities in

Exchange

mail server software, as well as fixes rated ‘Important’ for

SQL Server

and

Visio

, but it is the

IE

fix which has drawn the most attention, with a spokesman for vulnerability expert

Qualys

widely promoting the idea of removing the browser from the system and releasing updates as needed – which should, many argue, be far more often than once per month.

Details of the

Qualys

suggestions are in coverage at

ComputerWorld


here

,

RedmondMag


here

and

ZDNet


here

, with the official Patch Tuesday bulletin, containing full details of the latest round of patches,

here

.

Posted on 13 February 2009 by

Virus Bulletin