July's Patch Tuesday has released five critical security bulletins and two important security bulletins.

PatchLinks recommends that IT administrators prioritise two of the critical patches in particular - MS06-035 and MS06-036 - which impact every Windows-based machine - both servers and desktops. The patches fix a vulnerability that can enable remote execution and spell trouble for IT administrators. If organisations do not deploy the patches in a timely fashion, a hacker could send malicious packets that take over the system and allow access to sensitive data.

Patch Tuesday comes too soon for organisations still coping with the impact of 13 security bulletins from last month. Today, Microsoft released seven security updates, five rated as critical and two as important. As soon as the patches are released, organisations are recommended to test the patches in their environment and rapidly deploy them, starting with the critical ones, using industry's best practices guidelines.

With Microsoft indicating that it will end support for Windows 98 and ME, this Patch Tuesday may be the last time patches for these systems are released. While PatchLink encourages organisations running these legacy systems to upgrade to a more secure platform, PatchLink recognise the difficulty in a fast upgrade and will continue to support our customers with Windows 98 and ME.

PatchLink has developed a best practice Patch Tuesday Prep Guide to help organisations prepare for what has become a notoriously stressful IT day.

Related links: (Open in a new window.)
www.patchlink.com/redirect.asp?IDr=157&IDd=315
www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms06-jul.mspx

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