On Tuesday this week Microsoft jolted its customers with 10 new security bulletins and a re-release of a previous bulletin. Seven of the new bulletins were ranked as "critical" by the software vendor, while three were ranked "important." . . .
On Tuesday this week Microsoft jolted its customers with 10 new security bulletins and a re-release of a previous bulletin. Seven of the new bulletins were ranked as "critical" by the software vendor, while three were ranked "important."

The critical flaws place customers' systems at risk for serious security compromises, or even an Internet worm the likes of Code Red, Blaster, and SQL Slammer. This month's batch of patches aim to fix more than 20 vulnerabilities that affect a swath of Microsoft applications, including nearly every supported version of Windows, Exchange 2000, Exchange 2003, and Microsoft Excel.

This creates a race during the next few weeks between hackers and virus writers and the security administrators rushing to patch their business-technology systems before an attack. If history is any indicator, security professionals have from one week to 21 days before hackers' tools used to attack this week's set of vulnerabilities become widely available on the Internet. There's also the possibility that a worm could surface within weeks or even days.

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