I hope everyone had a relaxing and enjoyable Christmas and New Years!

According to their advanced notification post, Microsoft plans to release seven security bulletins on Tuesday, January 11. Six of the bulletins fix flaws in Windows or its components, while the remaining bulletin corrects vulnerabilities in one of Microsoft’s developer tools. Microsoft only rates one of the Windows bulletins as Critical, while the rest are Important.

Microsoft Patch Day has become a bit routine over the years (which is a good thing for a patch cycle), but this one does have a slightly noteworthy addition. One of the Important Windows bulletins fixes a “Security Feature Bypass” vulnerability. These types of vulnerabilities don’t really let attackers gain control of your systems, they just bypass security features that might make it easier for attackers to exploit other flaws. As a security professional, I tend to find flaws in security systems interesting as we can learn from them as an industry (similar to the way that mathematicians hammering public crypto algorithms can result in stronger encryption systems).

As usually, I’d apply Microsoft’s Critical patches first. Lately, the order of severity Microsoft has reported in their summaries has matched mine. So I recommend following their order.

I’ll be able to share more details about Microsoft’s bulletins next Tuesday. Make sure to check back here then.