July to be another big patch month for Microsoft

With online attackers taking advantage of holes in its Office software, Microsoft plans to release seven software patches next week.

Four of the updates will fix bugs in Windows while another three will address flaws in Microsoft Office, Microsoft said Tuesday in a bulletin on its Web site. Both sets of patches will address critical flaws, which attackers could exploit to run unauthorized code on a PC without any user action.

The patches will be released on July 11 as part of Microsoft's regularly scheduled monthly security updates. Microsoft's advance note on the updates can be found here.

The new software will likely fix a number of publicly reported vulnerabilities in Office, some of which concern Excel, said Gunter Ollmann, director of Internet Security Systems's X-Force threat analysis service.