The new set of updates released by Microsoft during its Patch Tuesday managed to fix a series of critical vulnerabilities. Out of the total of 26 patches, six are tagged as critical and another five as important.

All six critical vulnerabilities are linked to severe risks for Excel, Internet Explorer, Access and Microsoft Office.

The first, MS08-041, also called "Vulnerability in the ActiveX Control for the Snapshot Viewer for Microsoft Access Could Allow Remote Code Execution (955617)," affects Snapshot Viewer for Microsoft Access, Microsoft Office Access 2000, Microsoft Office Access 2002, and Microsoft Office Access 2003.

MS08-042, titled "Vulnerability in Microsoft Word Could Allow Remote Code Execution (955048)," targets Microsoft Word 2002 and Microsoft Word 2003, and could allow attackers to take complete control of a system, installing programs and changing or deleting data.

MS08-043, titled "Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution (954066)," affects a significant number of programs and applications, including Microsoft’s Office Excel 2000 Service Pack 3, PowerPoint 2007 File Formats Service Pack 1, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Excel Viewer 2003 Service Pack 3, Excel 2007 Service Pack 1 and Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word.

MS08-044, called "Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Filters Could Allow Remote Code Execution (924090)," affects Microsoft Office 2000 and is also linked to other releases such as Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 2, Microsoft Office Converter Pack and Microsoft Works 8.

MS08-045, "Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (953838)," affects all supported versions of Internet Explorer.

MS08-046, "Vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Image Color Management System Could Allow Remote Code Execution (952954)," affects Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows 2000. The company explained that an attacker exploiting this vulnerability could easily take control of a system, permitting any sort of action.

Besides these critical vulnerabilities, there are also the five tagged as important. The first, MS08-047, titled "Vulnerability in IPsec Policy Processing Could Allow Information Disclosure (953733)," targets all versions of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. Microsoft explained that this vulnerability cannot be used to directly execute codes, but it can help with collecting the information needed to compromise a system.

MS08-048, "Security Update for Outlook Express and Windows Mail (951066)," affects Windows XP and Windows Vista but it can also be linked to Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.

MS08-049, "Vulnerabilities in Event System Could Allow Remote Code Execution (950974)," affects Windows Server 2008, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000. It can be used to take control of a system and install programs, view or delete data and take any wanted action, under full administrative rights.

MS08-050, "Vulnerability in VBScript and JScript Scripting Engines Could Allow Remote Code Execution (944338)," affects Windows Messenger 4.7 and Windows Messenger 5.1 and it also addresses all supported editions of Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP, allowing access to the user’s contacts, also allowing audio and video chats without the users permission, in other words, the attacker could easily impersonate the targeted user.

MS08-051, "Vulnerabilities in Microsoft PowerPoint Could Allow Remote Code Execution (949785)," targets Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2000 and allows just as many of the vulnerabilities listed above the complete access to a user’s system.