Microsoft Preps 8 Security Bulletins for Patch Tuesday

Microsoft has a big Patch Tuesday planned for April 14 with the release of eight security bulletins to cover eight vulnerabilities.

The release includes five "critical" bulletins, including three affecting Microsoft Windows. The other two critical bulletins address issues in Microsoft Office Excel and Internet Explorer. According to Microsoft, IE 8 is not affected by the aforementioned bulletin, but earlier versions of the browser are. The Windows vulnerabilities span multiple editions of the operating system. More specific information about what versions are affected by each bulletin can be found here.

Accompanying the five critical bulletins are two other Windows bulletins rated "important" and a third bulletin affecting ISA (Internet Security and Acceleration Server) that is rated "moderate."

Missing from the patches is a fix for a flaw in the Microsoft Office PowerPoint software the company recently warned is being targeted by attackers. According to Microsoft, the malicious PowerPoint files are detected by the Windows Live OneCare safety scanner as Exploit:Win32/Apptom.gen. The products affected by the vulnerability are Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2000 Service Pack 3, PowerPoint 2002 Service Pack 3 and PowerPoint 2003 Service Pack 3. PowerPoint 2007 is unaffected.

The patches are slated to be released April 14.