ISSUE 17.4.1 • 2020-01-27

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ASKWOODY ALERT!
MS-DEFCON 3: Go ahead and install January patches

Woody Leonhard

By Woody Leonhard

Normally, I wait at least two or three weeks after Patch Tuesday to give the “go-ahead” for installing Microsoft’s monthly patches.

However, this month’s a bit different. In a welcome change, the patches are relatively well-behaved. Moreover, white-hat security researchers are getting closer to fabricating proof-of-concept exploit scenarios based on the CurveBall security hole (more info).

Fortunately, we aren’t anywhere close to full-on, in-the-wild attacks, regardless of what you might have read in the mainstream press for the past two weeks. That said, the threat pendulum has swung to the point where the benefits of patching outweigh any potential problems — in my opinion, anyway.

In related news, it now looks like we’re going to get another free security patch for Windows 7. Still not sure what’ll be included. Stay tuned.

Details in Computerworld. Remember that we’ve got your back — and we’ll answer your questions — on the AskWoody Lounge.

Publisher: AskWoody LLC (woody@askwoody.com); editor: Tracey Capen (editor@askwoody.com).

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