For those 8,000 some individuals lucky enough to be attending TechEd 2014 next week, it's worth noting that Microsoft's Patch Tuesday falls right smack in the middle of the festivities. A chat on Twitter yesterday shows that many are concerned about it, but since the patches releasing from Microsoft next week are not for addressing zero-day flaws, most may get a reprieve from having to work during the conference. Many companies send entire IT teams to TechEd, but expect them to work the entire time.
One individual, @spooons, stated that his company was already prepared to push off dealing with the updates until the week after TechEd. A good plan and good tip for those visiting Houston next week. Unless someone starts actively exploiting one of the flaws represented by the releasing updates, just leave it alone until it can be tested and managed.
But, there's another potential issue to be aware of. Adobe is also releasing security patches next Tuesday. And, while the company's security bulletin doesn't explicitly state that there are any active exploits against the pending releases, they are giving them the highest priority rating. Both Windows and Macs are vulnerable and need to be patched. The updates are for Adobe Reader X and XI and Adobe Acrobat X and XI.
Adobe's products continue to top the list of vulnerable software year after year. I wonder if there's an award for this type of consistency. So, while the Microsoft patches can wait for a week, we may see many TechEd attendees next week tethered to an electrical outlet while testing and patching against Adobe flaws.
