As part of its monthly patch cycle, Microsoft plans to release on Tuesday eight security bulletins to plug holes in its software products.
The most serious problems are in the Windows operating system and Office productivity suite, Microsoft said in a heads-up on its Web site Thursday. Each of those two product families will get three security bulletins, some of which will be tagged as "critical," Microsoft's highest risk rating.
In addition, Microsoft in its advance notification separates out two more security bulletins, one for Windows and Visual Studio and one for Windows and Office. These will be rated "important," a notch lower on the the company's risk ranking.
Microsoft has pulled four bulletins from its announced list of Patch Tuesday fixes, but did not specify why it was backpedaling on the security releases.
It now plans to issue four security bulletins on Tuesday, rather than the eight originally announced, the software giant said Friday in an updated notice on its Web site.
Microsoft January update is now out. The update includes 3 critical patches that fix the flaws for Excel, Outlook and Internet Explorer that allows remote code execution.