64 vulnerabilities to be patched by Microsoft this month

Stephen Withers
Friday, 08 April 2011 08:35

Business IT - Security

17 security bulletins have been scheduled for release by Microsoft next week. That will be one of the biggest releases ever, and while it equals the number issued in December 2010 the proportion of critical bulletins is much higher this month.

Microsoft is preparing to release a bumper crop of security bulletins, affecting Windows, Office, and Visual Studio and related software.

17 bulletins in one month is unusually high, but a similar number appeared last December. The difference is that far more of the April 2011 bulletins are rated critical, and they address a significantly larger number of vulnerabilities.

This month will see 17 bulletins, nine of them critical, addressing 64 vulnerabilities. In December 2010 there were only two critical bulletins and 40 vulnerabilities addressed.

13 of the bulletins concern Windows (including Internet Explorer), with multiple critical vulnerabilities affecting all currently supported versions. Interestingly, there will be more critical bulletins for Windows 7 (eight) than there are for XP (seven).

The bulletins will include fixes for the previously disclosed SMB browser and MHTML issues.

What about the non-Windows bulletins? See page 2.