Microsoft pushed out 90 updates this week in its August Patch Tuesday release, including fixes for five Windows zero-days (CVE-2024-38178, CVE-2024-38193, CVE-2024-38213, CVE-2024-38106, CVE-2024-38107) and one zero-day affecting Office (CVE-2024-38189).
Unfortunately, this means a “Patch Now” recommendation for both Windows and Microsoft Office this month. Microsoft offered several (pretty useful) mitigations and recommendations to reduce the impact of these security issues; our testing guidance reflects this, with a focus on the networking related features of Windows.
Minor updates for the Microsoft development platforms can be added to your standard patch release schedule, while Microsoft did not release any patches for Microsoft SQL Server or Exchange Server. And Adobe Reader updates are back, though we assume this will be included in your Windows desktop Patch Now release cycle.