In June, Microsoft issued 10 security bulletins addressing 31 vulnerabilities, the largest number of vulnerabilities fixed in a single day since the company began issuing regular patches on the second Tuesday of every month in October 2003.

This coming Tuesday, the company's four-month-old record will fall: Microsoft's October patch cycle includes 13 bulletins that address 34 vulnerabilities.

Eight of the bulletins are rated "critical" and five are rated important. The bulletins affect Windows, Internet Explorer, Office, Silverlight, Forefront, Developer Tools, and SQL Server.

According to a blog post by Microsoft senior security program manager Jerry Bryant, the patch will resolve two issues described in recent security advisories: a Server Message Block (SMB) vulnerability and an FTP vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Information Services (ISS).

"Usually we do not go into this level of detail in the advance notification but we felt that it is important guidance so customers can plan accordingly and deploy these updates as soon as possible," said Bryant.

Microsoft has acknowledged that there have been limited attempts to exploit the FTP/ISS vulnerability.

The SMB advisory says Microsoft isn't aware of attempts to exploit the SMB hole.

Last month, Microsoft posted a temporary fix for the SMB vulnerability, a clickable link that disables SMB v2.

Windows 7, which won't officially be released until October 22, is scheduled to receive its first patch on Tuesday. Five of the 13 bulletins -- one "critical" and four "important" -- apply to Windows 7. The critical bulletin affects Internet Explorer 8 under Windows 7.

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