February Patch Tuesday Is Delayed To Fix ‘Last Minute Issue’

Microsoft has delayed February’s ‘Patch Tuesday’ cybersecurity bulletin due to an unspecified issue with one of the patches.

The update would have been the first to be communicated via a new online portal, rather than the bulletins that it has published for the past 12 years.

The company first declared its intentions in November and the most recent Patch Tuesday, released on 10 January, was the last in the previous format.

However there is no Patch Tuesday at all to speak of so far in February.

February Patch Tuesday

“Our top priority is to provide the best possible experience for customers in maintaining and protecting their systems,” said the company.

“This month, we discovered a last minute issue that could impact some customers and was not resolved in time for our planned updates today. After considering all options, we made the decision to delay this month’s updates. We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this change to the existing plan.”

Silicon has contacted Microsoft for a more concrete release date and will update this article if we receive a response. When it does arrive, the update is expected to be a bit bulkier than the January Patch Tuesday, which had just four components.

The new format is designed so admins can get customised updates for the products and services they use rather than a generic bulletin.

Users will be able to sort updates via a Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure (CVE) identifier, knowledge base number or article ID number. Admins can also filter out vulnerabilities for products they don’t use.

A monthly summary will be available within the portal and Microsoft has stressed that customers will be notified of any out-of-cycle updates. Customers will also be able to sign up for automatic notifications.

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