Patch Tuesday is Here- Microsoft Releases 8 New Security Bulletins

It's that time of the month again. It's the second Tuesday in April...which means its Patch Tuesday...which means that Microsoft has unleashed a new batch of Security Bulletins on the world. Five of the Security Bulletins are rated as Critical, two are Important, and one is rated as Moderate.

The five Critical Security Bulletins deal with vulnerabilities affecting products ranging from Excel, to Wordpad, to Internet Explorer. In almost all cases the vulnerabilities that are addressed could allow an attacker to execute malicious code remotely on a vulnerable system if properly exploited. Of course, its never a good thing to let attackers execute malicious code on your computer from the comfort of their own living room couch, so its best to apply the patches and guard against such threats. MS09-014 is the ever-popular Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer and it is rated as Critical.

The MS09-012 Security Bulletin is only rated as Important, but it deals with token stealing and is a fairly serious security concern. Symantec's Ben Greenbaum has a video on Youtube.com discussing the eight Security Bulletins and explaining what he feels are the risks and level of urgency for the various updates. You can also tune in tomorrow (Wednesday, April 15) for the Microsoft webcast providing a more detailed explanation of the issues and the security bulletins. Check out the summary of the April 2009 Microsoft Security Bulletins for more details and links to download the appropriate patches.