Today is the last Patch Tuesday of the year. There are seven new security bulletins from Microsoft this month, and five of them are rated “critical.” If you use Windows, Microsoft Office, or Internet Explorer, you’ve got some work to do to get these new patches applied.

MS12-082 and MS12-083, security bulletins related to flaws in DirectPlay and IP-HTTPS respectively, are rated Important. The Critical security bulletins apply to the Windows operating system, Microsoft Office, the Internet Explorer Web browser, and Microsoft Exchange Server—and a few of them require a restart for the patch to take effect.

Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle, singles out MS12-077—the cumulative update for Internet Explorer—as the most urgent of the bunch. “Attackers will be targeting online holiday shoppers with this bug, so patch this before you do anything else.”

Storms also notes the unusual fact that the critical flaw in IE affects all versions, but is only exploitable on the newer versions, which are ostensibly “more secure” than their predecessors, including IE10 on Windows RT. Storms quips, “We can be sure this bug is not a gift Microsoft wanted to receive this holiday season.”

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