Patch Tuesday -- What You Need to Know

It must be the dog days. Or maybe all the hackers are too busy trying to crack the iPhone.

Or maybe, just maybe, Microsoft is just getting caught up to fixing all the worst security bugs in its products. (Not my first guess.)

At any rate, while the company released a grand total of six patches for its July "Patch Tuesday" drop today, only three were rated "critical" on Microsoft's severity rating scale. Of those three, two really demand your attention.

First, your version of Windows may have a special set of code libraries – called the .NET Framework – onboard. These libraries are there in order to run programs written in Microsoft (and in Microsoft-supported) programming languages. On some systems, the .NET Framework is installed by default and on others it comes with a program you installed.