I found an interesting blog post by industry veteran Don Jones for Redmond Magazine that I wanted to share.  It leads well into our recent ITScripts Catalog update.  Mr. Jones talks about a recent survey he performed on how much emphasis was placed on scripting (specifically with PowerShell) for different IT job titles.  Of the 600 respondents 80 percent require PowerShell in some, if not all, positions within IT.  None of the job titles were specific to PowerShell Scripter either, so it is an indication that this is one of many skills expected of IT Admins.

The survey also found …

Microsoft is starting off the new year with seven new security bulletins released for the January 2012 Patch Tuesday.  These seven new security bulletins address eight vulnerabilities.

The primary bulletin administrators should patch first is MS12-004.  This security bulletin addresses two vulnerabilities with Windows Media types.  Opening a malicious media or MIDI file on an unpatched system could allow an attacker to gain full control of the system.  As media files are extremely popular for viewing and sharing, administrators should patch this bulletin on their workstation machines as soon as possible.  It is important to note that …

Microsoft is kicking off the 2012 year with seven new Microsoft Security Bulletins.  Just announced in their advanced notification for the January 2012 Patch Tuesday, these seven security bulletins will address eight vulnerabilities.

Security Bulletin Breakdown:

1 bulletin is rated as Critical
6 bulletins are rated as Important
3 vulnerabilities could lead to Remote Code Execution
1 vulnerability could lead to Security Feature Bypass
2 vulnerabilities could lead to Information Disclosure
1 vulnerability could lead to Elevation of Privilege

Affected Products:

All supported Microsoft Operating Systems
Microsoft Developer Tools and Software

This Tuesday will also be a good chance to install the out-of-band security update (MS11-100) on …

Tis the season of good friends, good food, good conversation and of course patching your network.  Today marks the final Patch Tuesday of 2011, and it’s a big one. Microsoft is giving the gift of 13 security bulletins addressing 19 vulnerabilities to add to the stress of this holiday season.  Not to be outdone by Microsoft, other software vendors such as Google and Adobe are also joining in on the season of giving by releasing updates of their own.  This combination of Microsoft and non-Microsoft patch releases will definitely keep us busy this season.

On the Microsoft side, there …

In a recent blog post by Farzana Rahman, Microsoft’s group program manager of the Windows Update group, she wrote that Microsoft has no plans to support third party patching now or in the future. She writes:

Lastly but not the least, I want to address the feedback from users who would like WU to update their 3rd-party applications. People clearly find the experience with multiple updaters on the system less than optimal (and we agree!) Each application updater gives you a different experience, you have to remember to go visit each updater to install updates, you never know when or …

Microsoft has released their advanced notification for the December 2011 edition of Patch Tuesday.  Microsoft is giving the gift of 14 security bulletins addressing 20 vulnerabilities this holiday season.

Security Bulletin Breakdown:

3 bulletins rated as Critical
11 bulletins rated as Important
10 vulnerabilities could lead to Remote Code Execution
1 vulnerability could lead to Information Disclosure
3 vulnerabilities could lead to Elevation of Privilege

Affected Products:

All supported Microsoft Operating systems
Publisher 2003, 2007
Excel 2003
PowerPoint 2007, 2010
Office 2007, 2010
PowerPoint Viewer 2007
Office Compatibility Pack 2007

On the non-Microsoft front, Adobe released a security advisory (APSA11-04) for a zero-day vulnerability affecting Adobe Acrobat/Reader 9/10 on December 6th.  …

Hey Everybody,

Just a quick update on the latest XML release for VMware vCenter Protect Essentials Plus as you will notice some new items have been released.  As many of you know, vCenter Protect Essentials Plus 8.0 offers a new feature called ITScripts.   This integration with Microsoft Powershell  delivers powerful scripting capabilities through vCenter Protect Essentials Plus.  In the XML release yesterday we did release three new script into the VMware Script Catalog.

A little about XML Announcements for those who may not be familiar.  vCenter Protect Essentials Plus has regular data releases to update patch data.  Typically you will …

Microsoft has released four new security bulletins for this edition of Patch Tuesday.  These four security bulletins address four vulnerabilities.

The first bulletin administrators should address is MS11-083.  This bulletin addresses one vulnerability in Windows TCP/IP.  If an attacker sends a stream of malicious User Datagram Protocol (UDP) network packets to an unpatched machine, the attacker could gain control over the affected system.  With this type of an attack scenario, alarms could be raised about the potential of a vulnerability that is used in a worm.  However, there are a few items that will make it difficult …

It is patch week once again, but before the patch announcements and Patch Tuesday webinar start to fill your week I wanted to let you know what a couple hundred of our customers have already found out.  VMware vCenter Protect Essentials Plus 8.0 (formerly Shavlik NetChk Protect) is now available.  For those of you who have not seen the new features of the latest release they are focused on making day to day IT Management easier.

Check out the ITScripts feature and integration with RDP which provide some handy and quick solutions for any …

Microsoft has released their advanced notification for the upcoming November edition of Patch Tuesday.  Microsoft is planning to release four new security bulletins addressing four  vulnerabilities.

Security Bulletin Breakdown:

1 bulletin rated as Critical
2 bulletins rated as Important
1 bulletin rated as Moderate
2 vulnerabilities fixed could lead to Remote Code Execution
1 vulnerability fixed could lead to Elevation of Privilege
1 vulnerability fixed could lead to Denial of Service

 Affected Products:

All supported Microsoft Operating Systems

On the non-Microsoft front, be prepared for new versions of products in the Mozilla family.  New versions of Firefox, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey should be available on Patch Tuesday.

I will be …