Microsoft prepares urgent patch for Windows XP next week

Microsoft is readying an urgent patch for Windows XP on this month's patch Tuesday, restricting attackers from completely taking over the affected computers.

According to a Symantec blog post, successful exploits will result in complete compromise of affected computers and patching of XP will make it less vulnerable.

Attackers are known to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges and according to Microsoft; the same problem affects Windows Server 2003.

The urgency for patching of XP is due to Microsoft ending its support to XP in April, PC World reported.

Russ Ernst, director of product management at Lumension said that if one is still using XP, this will be an important patch to deploy.

Another alert, Bulletin 1 promises that it has patches for all supported versions of Microsoft Word and SharePoint Server, whereas the fourth bulletin addresses a denial-of-service weakness in Microsoft Dynamics AX.