Microsoft releases Patch Tuesday updates, this time with shiny charts

Our continuing coverage of Patch Tuesday, a monthly ritual in which Microsoft releases security updates to its products, today picks back up with the formal availability of March’s bulletins.

And just for fun, it turns out that Microsoft’s new code today put the kibosh on the new Firefox update, of all things, which you can read about here. From our previous coverage of what Microsoft is putting out today, we quote:

Here’s the docket: a total of six bulletins, of which one is rated as ‘critical,’ four are rated as ‘important,’ and one is deemed to be merely a ‘moderate’ issue. Readers of our consistently riveting Patch Tuesday coverage will astutely discern that this mix of patches is less teethsome (ha) than normal.

Of the six patches, the ‘critical’ update is unsurprisingly the most important. Qualys has the gist, as always: “Bulletin 1 will be the most important; it is critical rated Remote Code Execution (RCE) and is applicable in all versions of Windows from XP to the latest Win 7 and Server 2008R2.” Other patches impact Expression Design and Visual Studio.

Now, usually our writing on Patch Tuesday is utilitarian, boring, and short (what’s up, Hobbes?). But not this time. No sir, this time we have fancy charts. Yes, Microsoft’s Angela Gunn, in her post on the Microsoft Security Response Center blog provided the larger community with the following images. We are shamelessly reblogging them to inject some color into this post. Also, they contain a wealth of information about exactly what Microsoft is fixing today. Click on the for a higher res version:

Wasn’t that nice? A bit of yellow, red, and blue to go along with your Visual Studio and Windows updates. You’re welcome.