This month there are seven bulletins, addressing twelve issues in Windows, Internet Explorer (including IE 10) and Office. The Microsoft Security Response Center has a useful summary. For the gory details, see the official security bulletin for the December updates over at Technet.
Here are the bulletins:
Adobe has released new versions of Flash for all platforms. Windows users are encouraged to update Flash to the new version: 11.5.502.135.
Internet Explorer 10 and Google Chrome users will get the equivalent patch in the form of updates from Microsoft and Google, respectively.
The new versions fix a serious security issue in Flash.
The latest version of Google’s web browser has a few minor fixes, including one for a bug that caused the browser to crash in certain situations. Several security issues are also addressed in this version.
Microsoft has issued their monthly heads up for December’s patches.
The associated Security Bulletin outlines seven upcoming bulletins that address eleven security vulnerabilities, affecting Windows, Word and Internet Explorer (including IE 10).
The patches will become available at about 10am PST on December 11, 2012.
The latest version of Google’s Chrome web browser includes two security fixes and a few minor non-security fixes.
The latest version of Firefox includes several bug fixes, as well as some performance tweaks. The most notable changes are listed on the version 17.0.1 release notes page, while the 17.0.1 bug fixes page lists every change.
Version 23.0.1271.91 of Chrome includes several security and other bug fixes.
The latest version of Firefox includes some security improvements designed to help prevent malware infection via out of date versions of Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight. Specifically, when Firefox tries to display content using those older plugins, it will prompt the user for confirmation.
Version 17 also includes the usual assortment of security, performance and other bug fixes.
The latest version of Opera includes security and stability improvements.
Anyone who hasn’t yet tried Opera is encouraged to do so. A lot of people who reflexively stay away from Internet Explorer use Firefox instead, but that browser has had some issues lately. Google Chrome is a good alternative, but lacks some features that many users like. Opera is an excellent fourth option.
Another month, another Patch Tuesday. As discussed in the advance warning post, this month’s crop consists of six patches with nineteen fixes for Windows (including Windows 8), Office, Internet Explorer and .NET:
Windows users are encouraged to install the critical updates as soon as possible via Microsoft Update.
More details at the Microsoft Security Response Center.
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