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At the end of each year, some folks take a moment to jot down predictions about what the coming year has in store. I, on the other hand, do not do predictions. I am neither prognosticator, seer, fortune teller, prophet, clairvoyant, soothsayer, nor medium; although I have been accused of being a thaumaturge and security gnome, but only in good ways, of course.

On behalf of all of us here at Microsoft, I’d like to wish everyone a very happy New Year! With 2013 starting on a Tuesday, our monthly bulletin release is upon us a bit earlier than usual. Next Tuesday we’ll release seven bulletins; two Critical and five Important, which address 12 vulnerabilities.

Hello, Today we released Security Advisory 2798897 to notify customers that we are aware of active attacks using a fraudulent digital certificate issued by TURKTRUST Inc. To help protect customers, we have updated the Certificate Trust List (CTL) to remove the trust of the certificates causing this issue, and we encourage customers follow the guidance in Security Advisory 2798897.

We have updated Security Advisory 2749920 to include the Fix it we discussed in Saturday’s blog post. This easy, one-click Fix it is available to everyone and prevents the vulnerability from being used for code execution without affecting your ability to browse the Web. Additionally, applying the Fix it does not require a reboot.

Today, we released Security Advisory 2794220 regarding an issue that impacts Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8. We are only aware of a very small number of targeted attacks at this time. This issue allows remote code execution if users browse to a malicious website with an affected browser. This would typically occur by an attacker convincing someone to click a link in an email or instant message.

Hello, Today we’re publishing the December 2012 Security Bulletin Webcast Questions & Answers page. During the webcast, we fielded five questions focusing primarily on Microsoft Word and the Office compatibility pack in MS12-079. All questions are included on the Q&A page. We invite our customers to join us for the next public webcast on Wednesday, January 9th at 11 a.

Happy holidays! I hope everyone is enjoying the festive season. I like to get my holiday shopping done early, and this year was no exception. In the middle of my holiday shopping last week, as I passed my cash from one store to the next, I was reminded of “Pass-the-Hash.” (My mind does tend to wander a bit as I shop.

While it may be the most wonderful time of the year, we know it can also be the busiest time of the year. With that in mind, we’re providing advance notification that next Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2012, we’ll release seven security bulletins; five Critical and two Important, which address 11 vulnerabilities.

Hello, Today we’re publishing the November 2012 Security Bulletin Webcast Questions & Answers page. During the webcast, we fielded ten questions focusing primarily Windows RT, Windows 8, and Windows Server 2012 detection and deployment, MS12-072 (Windows Shell), and MS12-073 (IIS). All questions are included on the Q&A page. We invite our customers to join us for the next public webcast on Wednesday, December 12th at 11 a.

Security Updates Today we released six security bulletins to help protect our customers - four Critical, one Important, and one Moderate – addressing 19 vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows Shell, Windows Kernel, Internet Explorer, Internet Information Services (IIS), .NET Framework, and Excel. For those who need to prioritize deployment, we recommend focusing on these two Critical updates first: