Microsoft Corp., world’s largest software maker, has issued another installment of monthly security updates for its software products.

In this installment, Microsoft has issued three patches to fix critical flaws in Microsoft Windows operating system and Microsoft Word, which is part of the company’s Office suite.

Two other security patches were issued to fix vulnerabilities that are related to imaging technology in Windows. According to security reports, hackers could access the machine by prompting users into clicking an image file with embedded malicious code. "Simply by viewing one of these malicious images you can become infected with anything from adware and spyware to any other suspicious code," said Oliver Friedrichs, Senior Manager, Security Response Center, Symantec.

The vulnerability in Microsoft Word is similar to its imaging flaw. Only this time the malicious code would be embedded in a document. Once the user clicks on the file, the code would trigger to infect the entire system. The malicious code can affect Word versions dating back to 2000.

According to Microsoft, the vulnerabilities have now been fixed, and the programs are safe to use.