Five of the bulletins carry the maximum security rating of critical. Seven are rated important and one is rated moderate. The bulletins address 26 vulnerabilities.

With 13 bulletins, Microsoft has tied its record for the most security updates released in a single month. The last time Microsoft issued 13 bulletins was October 2009. This month's record release comes on top of a Jan. 21 out-of-band patch to fix a zero-day exploit in Internet Explorer used in cyberattacks against Google and other U.S. companies doing business in China.

The Most Disruptive Bulletins

"Bulletin six appears to be the most disruptive, as it is critical across all Microsoft platforms -- both server and desktops and laptops," said Don Leatham, senior director of solutions and strategy at Lumension. "Microsoft indicates that a reboot is required, so this patch could impact the availability of key servers and impact the productivity of information workers."

Leatham warns that IT teams managing servers will need to be on high alert this month and have proactive patching plans in place before Tuesday. That's because administrators are facing critical patches for the three most common server platforms in Microsoft environments.

Specifically, the patches cover three critical vulnerabilities in Windows Server 2003, two critical vulnerabilities in Windows Server 2008, and two critical vulnerabilities in Windows Server 2008 R2. What's more, Leatham added, IT teams managing work stations might have the heaviest load of all with four critical vulnerabilities for Windows XP and two critical vulnerabilities for Windows Vista.

"The bit of good news in the February patch update is that the Microsoft Office suite doesn't have any critical patches coming out, but overall, IT departments are facing the need to deploy a large number of patches to all Microsoft computers in the organization with many forced-reboot situations," Leatham said. "Therefore, it will be imperative to plan ahead this month on how these patches should be deployed throughout their enterprises to minimize the possibility of widespread disruption."

Microsoft Suggests Windows Upgrades

Jerry Bryant, a senior security communications manager for Microsoft, recommends customers test and deploy all security updates as soon as possible, giving priority to the critical patches. (continued...)

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