Microsoft will release six groups of security patches next week, fixing bugs in the latest versions of Excel, Windows XP, Vista, and Windows Server 2003. Online criminals will typically e-mail the victim with a maliciously encoded Office attachment that, once opened, gives the hacker access to the victim's computer. Microsoft isn't releasing further details on the flaws it's fixing until Tuesday. Three other less-critical updates are also planned for next week's "Patch Tuesday" security fixes. They include "important" updates for Microsoft Publisher 2007 and Windows XP Service Pack 2 as well as a fix for Windows Vista. In descending order of severity, Microsoft rates updates as critical, important, moderate, or low.

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