As announced last Friday, Microsoft released 16 security bulletins on the October Patchday. They fix security vulnerabilities in various Windows operating systems and components like Internet Explorer, Windows Kernel, .Net frameworks, and Microsoft Office.

Affected are all operating systems from Windows XP to Windows Server 2008 R2. Office needs to be updated from version XP to 2010 – also the Mac OS flavours. The patches fix critical rated vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer 6 to 8.

As Microsoft’s exploitability-index shows that for many of these security holes exploitation is likely and reliable possible, users and administrators should install the provided updates as soon as possible!