Microsoft is releasing 12 patches on Tuesday for a near record 57 vulnerabilities. This release is only bested by the 64
vulnerabilities of April 2011.
Five of the patches are critical. Two of those five are for Internet Explorer
versions 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. One is for Exchange
Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2010.
The other critical and important updates affect Windows XP, Windows
Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows RT.
I just witnessed a company have a very expensive and hurtful
virus attack. The whole drama could have
been prevented with a structured patch update and anti-virus update
program. If you have questions or need
help with managing and monitoring your updates give me a call or shoot and
e-mail and I will help you out. I can be
reached at 949 428-5005 or Oli@Alvaka.net.
Smoke testing is a term used to describe the testing process for servers after patches are applied. 
Estimating an average time for patching servers and PCs can be a bit tricky. It can vary from one month to the next, depending upon the number and complexity of the patches released by your software vendors. You must consider all versions of operating systems and have a complete inventory of all your application software to do this job correctly. Our experience has shown that manual patching of systems takes on average of about 1.5 hours each.
This is a basic cost calculator for you to compute your typical monthly cost for patching your servers, PCs, laptops, tablets and associated application software. It also forms the basis for you to begin calculating your Return on Investment for software patching, or for comparison with alternatives to the manual process of patching operating systems and application software—such as Patch Management as a Service, also known as Vulnerability Management as a Service.