Monster-patch Tuesday this coming one is. On Tuesday the 14th, Microsoft is releasing a record 17 security updates to patch 40 ongoing vulnerabilities in Windows.

Two of the 17 updates were tagged with Microsoft’s “critical” label, the highest threat ranking in its four-step scoring system. Another 14 were marked “important,” the second-highest rating, while the remaining update was labeled “moderate.”

Worthy of mention is that some of the patches are intended for resolving the 4 vulnerabilities that a notorious piece of malware –  Stuxnet – exploited in the recent past.

As usual if you have Automatic Updates turned on, there is no action required by the user except perhaps a restart once the updates are installed. If your computer is not set to download and install updates automatically, user intervention will be needed.