Microsoft has responded to security vulnerabilities affecting Intel processors and other Microsoft products built since 1995. These vulnerabilities potentially place data at risk. To mitigate risk for our customers, Microsoft has forced out its next patching schedule early, ahead of the scheduled January 9th launch. This will help to protect all Microsoft customers, but will create some changes in our Maintenance Window schedules. Throughout today and the rest of this week, you may experience a temporary reboot and loss of service to some Azure VM’s. New Signature has no control over this maintenance window, but if one or more of your Azure servers suddenly go offline, there is no need for alarm. Service will resume as normal once the host machine has been patched. New Signature is dedicated to the security of our customers’ environments and data. The ability to safeguard and control access to confidential information is a battle for all organizations, and we are here as your trusted Microsoft partner to ensure that the proper steps are taken to remain secure. Reed Wiedower, New Signature’s Chief Technology Officer spoke on this topic to Channel Redmond Partners and expresses the importance of security in today’s business atmosphere. “It’s just another reminder that in 2018, partners need to be helping customers move to a model in which features are introduced monthly or quarterly, and security patches are introduced daily or weekly,” he says. “By contrast, partners and customers that don’t patch their operating systems on a real-time basis are going to be put into a bit of a bind as they move forward.” Visit the official Microsoft advisory to learn more, and reach out to New Signature with further questions or if you require any assistance. We will be reaching out to our customers for whom we provide patching services for next steps.