January Patch Tuesday: one critical, seven important updates for Windows

In what was a landmark Patch Tuesday for Microsoft, and not simply because it was the first of 2015, the company announced that it would not be making its advanced patch warnings public for its Patch Tuesday rosters, and this came into effect this week.

While Google and Microsoft have been enjoying their little spat, the latter has pushed patches to Windows this month, with eight in total and one labeled as critical. The latter is namely a hole in the Telnet client, which could allow an attacker to remotely execute malicious code on your machine. It’s pretty detrimental to Server builds too, so update immediately if you’re running any breed of Windows Server.

More interestingly, two of those eight updates have been labeled as “publicly disclosed” which is Microsoft’s formal “nudge nudge, cough cough” in Google’s direction.

Read more: Microsoft criticises Google for disclosing Windows 8.1 bug before it fixed it

These two are namely holes concerning a “vulnerability in Windows Application Compatibility Cache” and a “vulnerability in Windows User Profile Service”, bulletins MS15-001 and MS15-003 respectively.

Other issues address various elements of the Windows OS from Vista through to the Server builds, so it is recommended that you run Windows Updates immediately to receive these patches.

Most astonishingly, there was no bulletin issued for Internet Explorer or any Microsoft software, which is about as rare as a unicorn rollerblading on a blue moon. It seems that the only update was a re-release of last month’s patch addressing remote code execution vulnerabilities.

News that Microsoft is working on a new browser, dubbed Spartan, to accompany Windows 10 users should probably spell the end for Internet Explorer, at least as we know it, but it seems that the company is still committed to it, for now.

Read more: December Patch Tuesday: Microsoft issues critical updates for Windows, Internet Explorer

As for other chronic updaters, Adobe has pushed new patches to Flash. You can read all about them here, but regardless, you should probably take steps towards updating Flash immediately.