patch tuesday update march 2016 infographic

Things were going too smoothly this month, but it did not take long to accumulate some curve balls to make your March patching more interesting.

As we expected, Flash was very close to a release on Patch Tuesday. It's here and with it Microsoft has released MS16-036, which is the Flash plug-in for Flash Player Security Bulletin. Also, expect ANOTHER Google Chrome update to support the latest Flash plug-in version there as well.

Ok, so APSB16-018: Adobe Flash Player contains 23 vulnerabilities, several of which are critical in nature, but lets focus in on CVE-2016-2010. This vulnerability was reported as being used in limited, targeted attacks. ZERO DAY!

Next lets talk about a stealthy addition to the IE cumulative security update this month. Microsoft has added in another GWX trigger, so your users will get a dialog to upgrade to Windows 10. Check out this post by Rod Trent at WindowsITPro for details. The IE Cumulative KB page states that there are a number of non-security changes in this month's cumulative and KB3146449 is in the list.

I have been keeping up with a thread on PatchManagment.org regarding this little stealth change, and I can say there are some very displeased people out there. As an aside, one of the comments on Rod Trent's article recommended this writeup for blocking GWX. We are in no way affiliated with them and I have not personally tested this, but I thought I would share it as I expect people will be looking for ways to prevent their users from getting the dialog at all.