Seven Critical Security Alerts Released For Windows

Seven of the bulletins were tagged as "critical," a severity rating that warns that hackers could exploit the vulnerabilities by introducing worms that could be used to trigger remote code execution, according to Microsoft.

The seven critical bulletins apply to a range of Microsoft products, including Windows XP, Server 2003, Excel and Internet Explorer, according to the Redmond, Wash.-based company.

Three of the bulletins were tagged with the lesser rating of "important." They addressed vulnerabilities in the RPC runtime library, the WebDav XML message handler and NetDDE. The RPC and WebDav XML vulnerabilities could open the door to denial-of-service attacks. The NetDDE vulnerability could allow for remote code execution, according to Microsoft.

Details of the 10 bulletins and remediation procedures can be found at Microsoft's Web site.

All of the critical updates are already included in Windows XP Service Pack 2, according to Microsoft. Customers running Windows XP SP2 that have enabled Automatic Updates will automatically receive the sole update that applies: MS04-038, according to the company.