Patch Tuesday fixes Word, Outlook, IE

Hot on the heels of a series of Vista fixes, October's edition of Microsoft Patch Tuesday brought us a slew of bug fixes, in the form of six security advisories for nine vulnerabilities. Here's what's on tap:

• MS07-056: Critical vulnerability affecting Outlook Express and Windows Mail could allow an attacker to install malware on a user's machine.
• MS07-055: Critical bug in Kodak Image Viewer (pre-installed in Windows 2000) could allow for remote code execution.
• MS07-057: Critical flaw could allow remote code execution in Internet Explorer.
• MS07-058: Important fix addresses denial-of-service vulnerability in RPC (remote procedure call).
• MS07-059: Important patch fixes escalation of privilege vulnerability in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007.
• MS07-060: Critical word vulnerability could lead to a user's system being hijacked by a remote attacker.

That's four critical patches and six in total, so make sure to patch early and often. As usual, the patches are available via Windows Update and directly from Microsoft's website.

For more on October's Patch Tuesday:
- see this eWeek article