Risk: High
Microsoft identifies eight critical issues and five important issues in October's Patch Tuesday.
Critical vulnerabilities in SMBv2, Media Runtime, Media Player, Internet Explorer, Active X and Active Template Library may cause remote code execution.
Important issues in FTP service may also cause remote code execution as well as others such as Windows Kernal which could cause elevation of privilege.
The general consensus from commentators is that this is a very heavy load of patches after a busy summer. Andrew Clarke, senior vice president at Lumension, claimed that after a heavy summer of patch releases, October's Patch Tuesday fails to give IT administrators a welcome respite.