Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday is 20 years old, and 1.4 billion monthly active Windows devices still require constant updates to keep users’ data safe. The company’s official Windows blog posted an abridged version of the Patch Tuesday and Windows security history, unveiling how the monthly patching initiative originated from Bill Gates himself.
Microsoft’s former CEO and co-founder sent a company-wide email on January 12, 2002, announcing the Trustworthy Computing (TwC) initiative. Microsoft VP John Cable said that TwC represented a paradigm shift, pushing security teams to adopt a new approach to bug fixing and the entire security update process. In his email, Gates asked for a dramatic reduction in the number of security issues in Windows.
