Independent

I don’t know about you, but I’ve given up on Microsoft’s ability to deliver reliable patches. Month after month, we’ve seen big bugs and little bugs pushed and pulled and squished and re-squished. You can see a chronology from the past two years in my patching whack-a-mole columns starting here.

For the past few months, though, we’ve seen some improvement. Microsoft has started identifying and publicly acknowledging big bugs, shortly after they’re pushed. Consider:

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The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) on Tuesday called on IT administrators to apply security updates issued by Microsoft three weeks ago, adding to a chorus of voices urging haste.

“The National Security Agency is urging Microsoft Windows administrators and users to ensure they are using a patched and updated system in the face of growing threats,” the NSA said in a June 4 advisory.

The agency’s advice followed by several days that of Microsoft itself. On Thursday, May 30, a company official reminded users of the updates – which the company released May 14 – and implied that time is short. “We strongly advise that all affected systems should be updated as soon as possible,” Simon Pope, the director of incident response at the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), wrote in a blog post.

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