What’s New

• Exciting Changes for 2014 (Please Read)- We are making some significant changes in 2014.  All of the details are on our website here.
• Closed for Christmas – We will be closing at noon on 24 December 2013 for Christmas and New Year and will not reopen until 2 January 2014.  We will be available for emergency support only during this time.
• Stay up-to-date with our Facebook Page, Support Center and email list-  Like us on Facebook, bookmark the Support Center and join the mailing list (the subscribe link is at the top left) to get near-real-time updates on the latest in technology.  If you haven’t been getting our monthly emails (if this is the first that you got in a while), take a moment to re-subscribe to our mailing list.
  
• Buyer Beware, scammers will be out in force this holiday season – The holiday season is upon us.  
  
• Merry Christmas!!  This is the last scheduled newsletter that will go out before Christmas and we want to wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
• Fraudulent Support Calls – I mentioned this earlier but the fraudulent support calls are making their way around again.  Please take a moment to read my earlier article about this and don’t get fooled.  We have seen a number of victims of this already and it seems to be growing.  SANS has setup a form for collecting data on these calls.  If you get one and don’t mind, please fill out the form here and pass the info along to friends and relatives.

Updates

Microsoft – According to the Advanced Notification, there are 11 bulletins again this month including 5 critical and 6 important.  All of the usual suspects (Windows, Internet Explorer, etc.) are affected as well as some new ones (Lync and the Developer Tools).  One thing that’s interesting to note is that the recently published zero day exploits in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 will not be patched.  I suspect that this will be an ongoing theme as we get closer to the EOL for both of these in April of 2014.

Microsoft releases regular updates the second Tuesday of each month, often referred to as ‘Patch Tuesday’.  These updates are categorized as Low, Moderate, Important or Critical.  Details on the categories is available here.  The updates can include any *supported* Microsoft product from Windows (Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows 8, Windows Server, etc.) to Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, OneNote, and even MS Office for Mac) to Internet Explorer to server products like Exchange, SQL Server and more.  If you have one of these products installed, especially if the update is listed as Important or Critical, it’s important that the update be installed. 

Additional details are available from Microsoft here.  

Adobe – Adobe released two updates in November, one for Cold Fusion and one for Flash Player but, as of this email, no new ones have been released.  If history is any indicator though, there will be a massive update as soon as this email goes out.  It’s not a bad idea to check the update links below, just in case.

Like Microsoft, Adobe now releases updates to their products on the second Tuesday of each month.  Adobe will also release ‘out of band’ updates if necessary to address critical vulnerabilities in their products.  Adobe products include Adobe Reader (for viewing PDF files), Adobe Flash Player (often used to watch videos like YouTube and in interactive web content like games) and Adobe Shockwave.  

Additional details and downloads are available from Adobe here. 

Java – The most up-to-date version of Java is still Java 7 update 45.  

Java is a tool that’s widely used by Banks, online service providers and even security companies for VPN connections.  Java’s ‘official’ release cycle is approximately quarterly but Java updates have been ‘fast and furious’ for the past several months.  It’s worth noting again that, if you don’t absolutely need Java on your computer, it’s worth removing it altogether (this can be done from Add / Remove programs). 

Additional details and downloads are available from Oracle here.     
 

Monthly Update Clients
* If you are not currently taking advantage of our monthly update service and would like more information or to sign up, additional information is available here. 
 
For our Monthly Update clients, if a date and time hasn’t already been scheduled to install your updates, we will be contacting you shortly to schedule.   

If you aren’t already taking advantage of our monthly update service, there’s no time like the present to get started.  We offer a monthly update service to keep all of your computers up-to-date for a low monthly fixed price with no long-term commitment.  Additional information is available on our website.