Patch Tuesday Analysis for May 2010

Last week Microsoft alerted us to a possible vulnerability in Sharepoint sites (specifically cross-site scripting or XSS). No patch was released for that today so we expect something in the future-perhaps an out-of-band release. 

Otherwise, the two bulletins this month are rated critical. One is for VBA and Office and the other the Windows platform. 

The VBA related patch (MS10-031) is an unusual situation.  Because VBA is part of Office products but also a separate product that ISV developers can build into their applicaitons to allow their users ability to customize their application.  The developer tool version of Microsoft VBA is sold through Summit Software.  If your company develops software and uses Microsoft VBA you will want to read this one carefully - otherwise just pay attention to bits about Office and VBA. MS10-030 is for a vulnerability in Outlook Express and Windows Mail. The “workaround” suggests using web-based mail instead.  For corporations this shouldn't be an issue anyway since you are probably using Outlook or someother mail client.  You should still patch though incase users are using Windows Mail or Outlook Express to connect to personal accounts. 

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