Microsoft plans out-of-band patch this Tuesday

In a move to fix critical vulnerabilities in Visual Studio and Internet Explorer--programs that demand more immediate attention--Microsoft will be issuing two out-of-band security patches today.

Mike Reavey, director of the Microsoft Security Response Center, declined to provide specifics about the patches prior to their release, only stating that both patches are for addressing the same issue that appears centered to Visual Studio. The patch for Internet Explorer will provide "defense-in-depth changes to...help provide additional protections for the issues addressed by the Visual Studio bulletin."

Due to the popularity of the Visual Studio programming suite for the creation of Windows software, Paul Henry, security and forensic analyst at Lumension cautioned that the patch could have far-ranging implications.

"In light of potential issues with the Visual Studio, patch users with mission-critical third party applications may want to test the out-of-band patch in a 'non-production' environment to be sure the changes do not impact their mission-critical application," Henry wrote.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at InformationWeek
- check out this article at The Lumension Blog

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