Microsoft Readies Five Security Bulletins

Microsoft said Thursday it will release five security bulletins on Dec. 14. All the bulletins affect its Windows operating system and none of the flaws is ranked higher than "important," the company said on its advanced security bulletin notification Web page.

The company's most severe software-flaw ranking is "critical," which generally means hackers could remotely attack the security hole or design a worm to attack the flaw.

Microsoft began issuing advanced security-patch notification to customers last month. It's an attempt to help customers better prepare staff and IT resources in advance to patch software holes.

Microsoft says it won't release any additional information about the flaws until the patches are released next week. However, security researchers have claimed to find 10 security vulnerabilities in the Windows Service Pack 2 operating system update.

Microsoft is also known to be investigating flaws in Internet Explorer and other purported flaws that affect Windows NT 4.0 Server, Windows 2000 Server, and Windows Server 2003.