Microsoft fixes record 26 security holes

Microsoft Corp. released 10 security patches on Tuesday, addressing a record high of 26 flaws in its Windows OS and other products.

Among the 10 patches, five are intended for Windows, the highest rating of those being critical; four for Office, with the highest rating also being critical; and one moderate patch for the .NET framework.

The patches can be manually downloaded from Microsoft's website, but a glitch prevented the company from pushing the updates out automatically.

Microsoft said it hopes its more automated tools would have the patch available later on Tuesday.

"Each bulletin addresses multiple vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office, Word, Excel and PowerPoint," said Oliver Friedrichs, an expert at security software maker Symantec Corp. "Some of these vulnerabilities have already been publicly disclosed."

The second-largest release was in August, when Microsoft's 12 patches put right 23 flaws.

Source: Xinhua/agencies