December Patch Tuesday is upon us. Let's see if we have presents under the tree or coal in our stockings…

Microsoft has released 12 bulletins, eight of which are Critical, resolving a total of 71 vulnerabilities. Adobe released a whopper of a Flash update resolving 78 vulnerabilities. Google Chrome is dropping today as well. Aside from an update for the Flash Player plug-in and its 78 security fixes, there are reportedly security fixes coming for the browser as well.

While Microsoft has quite the lineup this month, it didn't quite catch Adobe's 78 vulnerabilities resolved for the month. They did, however, have one public disclosure (CVE-2015-6175), and two vulnerabilities exploited in the wild (CVE-2015-6175, CVE-2015-6124). Here are the highlights for Microsoft:

MS15-0124 is a critical update for Internet Explorer with 30 vulnerabilities resolved in total. Also of note, Internet Explorer supported versions will be changing quite a bit in January. After January 12, 2016, only the latest IE version available on each operating system will be supported. This means if you are not running the latest version of IE available for the version of Windows you are on, you will no longer be getting security updates. Time to check your browser versions across the enterprise and compare to the versions listed in this blog post:

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ie/2014/08/07/stay-up-to-date-with-internet-explorer/

MS15-125 is a critical update for Edge with 15 vulnerabilities resolved. This update will be included with six others in the December Windows 10 Cumulative Security Update.

MS15-128 is a critical update for Windows, .Net Framework, Office, Skype, Lync and Silverlight, resolving three vulnerabilities. This is a Microsoft Graphics Component update, which is a shared library that affects many applications. Expect many variations of this update to affect the same system for each product you have installed that is affected.

MS15-131 is a critical update for Microsoft Office, resolving six vulnerabilities. This bulletin includes a fix for CVE-2015-6124, which has been detected in exploits in the wild. The vulnerability takes advantage of a failure to properly handle objects in memory. If exploited, the attacker could run arbitrary code in the context of the user. Least privilege policies would help mitigate the impact if exploited by limiting what the attacker could do. This vulnerability can be exploited in web-based attacks using specially crafted content designed to exploit the vulnerability.

MS15-135 is an important update for Microsoft Windows, which resolves four vulnerabilities. This bulletin includes a fix for CVE-2015-6175, which has been publicly disclosed and also has been detected in exploits in the wild. While this is only rated as important, we recommend treating this as a high priority. This update resolves Kernel memory handling. An attacker who successfully exploits this vulnerability could run arbitrary code in kernel mode. At that point they could install programs, view, change or delete data or create new accounts with full user rights. This is a Kernel update, so thorough testing is highly recommended.

Windows also released its Windows 10 December Cumulative Update (3116869). This update includes seven bulletins: MS15-124, MS15-125, MS15-126, MS15-128, MS15-132, MS15-133 and MS15-135. This update includes five critical bulletins and MS15-135, which includes CVE-2015-6175. This vulnerability has been publicly disclosed and detected in exploits in the wild.

APSB15-32 is a Priority 1 update for Adobe Flash Player, resolving 78 vulnerabilities. This bulletin includes a large number of code execution vulnerabilities and a few security feature bypass vulnerabilities. To fully resolve these vulnerabilities you need to ensure you update Flash Player on the OS, as well as the plug-in in your browsers. You will need to update IE, Chrome and Firefox plug-ins to fully ensure these vulnerabilities are resolved.

Google has also released an update to Chrome resolving at least 7 vulnerabilities by initial reports from Google. It will also include support for the Flash Player plug-in and the 78 vulnerabilities resolved there. This is recommended to be a high-priority update this month.

Join us tomorrow for the December Patch Tuesday webinar where we will discuss the bulletins in more detail.