All details will be posted on the Security Updates portal

Nov 9, 2016 10:44 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has recently introduced a preview of its new Security Updates Guide portal and now the company is making a change that will put it at the core of update information provided to users.

Specifically, long-time Microsoft users might know that the company is posting security update information on TechNet on a website called Microsoft Security Bulletin, but since the firm is overhauling the way security patches are shipped to users, a new channel to provide this info is being developed as well.

More recently, Microsoft introduced a preview of the Security Updates Guide, a new portal that includes pretty much everything you need to know about security vulnerabilities using a single and comprehensive online database.

Full transition to the security portal

Starting with January 2017, this new portal will become the only source of information regarding security updates, with Microsoft explaining that the Security Bulletin website will be used just one more time next month on Patch Tuesday.

Microsoft goes on to explain the main advantages of its new service, pointing out that users can sort and filter security vulnerability and update content by CVW, KB number, or product, but also filter out products that aren’t of interest to them.

You can also “leverage a new RESTful API to obtain Microsoft security update information,” Microsoft explains, and “this eliminates the need for you to employ outdated methods like screen-scraping of security bulletin web pages to assemble working databases of necessary and actionable information.”

The first time the new Security Updates Guide page will be used to provide users with information regarding security patches is January 10, when Microsoft kicks off the first Patch Tuesday release cycle of 2017. Users can already try out the new website at this point, but the TechNet page survives as well until January, so you can access whichever you like more for the next month and a half.