For the latest round of Microsoft's monthly collection of software patches, the company has fixed critical issues in Internet Explorer (IE) and Windows that have already been used by malicious attackers to compromised systems.



From Computerworld:

None of these fixes are for Windows XP or Office 2003, both of which Microsoft stopped supporting in April (except for those customers with extended support contracts). Many of the patches in this month's collection do fix code vulnerabilities that probably originated in Windows XP or Office 2003, if not in earlier versions.

Studying what is being fixed with each month's round of patches could give attackers an easy entry point into these older, now unsupported, systems, because these older systems probably have the same vulnerabilities, said Wolfgang Kandek, chief technology officer for IT security firm Qualys. Qualys estimated that eight of the 10 patches this month could apply to XP or Office 2003.

  Microsofts Patch Tuesday gives XP attackers a roadmap