19 Microsoft security holes on have been patched Tuesday

Microsoft rolled out updates for 19 vulnerabilities on Tuesday. The batch of updates include a critical fix for a vulnerability that affects all versions of Internet Explorer, from IE6 to E10, on all supported versions of Windows.

The IE update (MS13-047) grapples with 19 vulnerabilities and covers all versions of IE, from IE6 to IE10, on all supported versions of Windows, from XP to RT. It's just the sort of thing that might be latched onto by hackers as part of drive-by-download attacks, based on malicious scripts on compromised websites, and therefore needs to be patched sooner rather than later. The other four bulletins this week all cover lesser flaws, rated "important" by Microsoft. The most noteworthy of these is (MS13-051) which covers Microsoft Office 2003 on Windows and 2011 for Mac OS X and tackles a parsing vulnerability for the PNG graphic format that has already cropped up in a limited number of active attacks.