As the malware landscape evolves, it's helpful to understand how malware gets onto your machine. Knowing the bad guys' strategies gives you the edge while on-line and puts you in a stronger position to defend your data and PC against compromising threats.

We all know that we should install anti-malware software, keep it up to date and run regular scans, apply Windows and application security patches when they become available, use a firewall... well, I won't bore you - you know what to do. But what kind of attacks can we expect and where are they coming from?

Microsoft have published a Security Bulletin Summary for October 2011. Eight updates have been released including two "critical" and six "important" severity updates.

The patches address remote code execution, elevation of privilege and denial of service vulnerabilities within Windows, Internet Explorer, Microsoft .NET Framework, Microsoft Silverlight, Microsoft Forefront United Access Gateway and Microsoft Host Integration Server.