Patch Tuesday fixes Microsoft and Adobe flaws

Tuesday looks to be a busy day for administrators, with both Microsoft and Adobe releasing critical flaw fixes.

Microsoft's Patch Tuesday release will contain a dirty dozen of updates, three rated critical and nine important. The advisory warns they will cover issues in Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, Office, Visual Studio, and IIS.

The company will be giving more details on Tuesday at 6pm GMT and will be hosting a webcast for administrators to explain the issues and deployment strategy, said Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group.

Administrators have also been warned that Adobe's quarterly update will be coming on Tuesday and it contains critical patches for most versions of Reader and Acrobat.

The update will fix flaws in Adobe Reader X for Windows and Macintosh, Adobe Reader 9.4.1 and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX, Adobe Acrobat X for Windows and Macintosh, and Adobe Acrobat 9.4.1.

The patch is due on Tuesday for Windows and Macintosh systems, with UNIX patches to be released by the end of the month.

Adobe has had to really improve its vulnerability patching procedure after a series of attacks by malware writers against Reader and Acrobat, which are among the most popular third-party applications in use today.

The company has added sandboxing for PDFs and is working more closely with Microsoft to increase the security of its code, as well as instituting regular code updates.

Attacks on the company's code are still continuing, and experts agree Adobe faces an uphill battle against the hacking community.