February bringing bumper Microsoft patch crop

Stephen Withers
Friday, 08 February 2008 00:30

Your IT - Home IT

After a relatively quiet January, Microsoft will issue a dozen security bulletins - more than half of them rated critical - next Tuesday, February 12.

The seven items with a maximum security rating of critical all involve potential remote code execution. Affected software includes Windows, Office, Visual Basic, and Internet Explorer.

There will be at least one critical update for all currently supported versions of Windows, including Vista.

As for Office, versions set to receive critical updates include Office 2000 and 2004. The corresponding issues in Office 2002 and 2003 are rated important, and more recent versions do not appear to be affected.

The five bulletins with a maximum rating of important relate to Windows, Active Directory, ADAM, IIS, and the Works 6 File Converter for Office 2003, Works 8.0 and Works Suite 2005.

In addition to the 12 security bulletins, Microsoft plans to release the usual update of the Malicious Software Removal Tool, seven non-security but high-priority updates on Microsoft Update and Windows Server Update Services, and two non-security but high-priority updates for Windows on Windows Update and Windows Server Update Services.