"Microsoft Corp. today patched 28 vulnerabilities, nearly all of them marked "critical," in the biggest batch of fixes it has issued since it switched to a regular monthly update schedule more than five years ago.

Of the 28 bugs quashed today, Microsoft ranked 23 of them critical, the top rating in its four-step scoring system. Of the five others, three were judged to be "important," the next step down, and two were pegged as "moderate." The patches were issued in eight updates for Windows, Internet Explorer, Office, SharePoint, Windows Media, and the company's most popular development tools, Visual Basic and Visual Studio." - ComputerWorld

From Microsoft's Bulletin.

"The following table summarizes the security bulletins for this month in order of severity.

MS08-071
Vulnerabilities in GDI Could Allow Remote Code Execution (956802)

This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in GDI. Exploitation of either of these vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted WMF image file. An attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.
   

MS08-075
Vulnerabilities in Windows Search Could Allow Remote Code Execution (959349)

This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in Windows Search. These vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user opens and saves a specially crafted saved-search file within Windows Explorer or if a user clicks a specially crafted search URL. An attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.
   

MS08-073
Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (958215)

This security update resolves four privately reported vulnerabilities. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.
   

MS08-070
Vulnerabilities in Visual Basic 6.0 Runtime Extended Files (ActiveX Controls) Could Allow Remote Code Execution (932349)

This security update resolves five privately reported vulnerabilities and one publicly disclosed vulnerability in the ActiveX controls for the Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Runtime Extended Files. These vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user browsed a Web site that contains specially crafted content. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.
   

MS08-072
Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Word Could Allow Remote Code Execution (957173)

This security update resolves eight privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Word and Microsoft Office Outlook that could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted Word or Rich Text Format (RTF) file. An attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.
   

MS08-074
Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution (959070)

This security update resolves three privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Excel that could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted Excel file. An attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

MS08-077
Vulnerability in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Could Cause Elevation of Privilege (957175)

This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability. The vulnerability could allow elevation of privilege if an attacker bypasses authentication by browsing to an administrative URL on a SharePoint site. A successful attack leading to elevation of privilege could result in denial of service or information disclosure.
   
MS08-076
Vulnerabilities in Windows Media Components Could Allow Remote Code Execution (959807)

This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in the following Windows Media components: Windows Media Player, Windows Media Format Runtime, and Windows Media Services. The most severe vulnerability could allow remote code execution. If a user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights."

Computer World Article: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticl...
Microsoft's bulletin: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-dec.mspx