<p>This week brings two important security updates from Adobe and Microsoft that will affect hundreds of millions of Windows users.</p><p>Yesterday, Adobe rolled out fixes for 25 vulnerabilities in its Flash Player, ahead of its normal schedule. Microsoft also surprised customers, following suit and pushing its own nearly identical patch for Internet Explorer 10. Microsoft's Monday update will only affect a handful of Windows 8 users as the new operating system doesn't go on sale until later this month.</p><p>In contrast, Microsoft's normally scheduled Patch Tuesday today will be fairly light and mostly fix Office bugs.</p><p>Flash fixedInfosecurity Magazine speculated that Adobe's surprise patch may be in anticipation of Google's upcoming Pwnium 2 contest in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia tomorrow (Oct. 10). All but one of the vulnerabilities patched yesterday were discovered by Google, who baked the player into Chrome. The Internet behemoth pays freelance researchers to bust its browser and is offering up a purse of up to $2 million for successful Chrome hacks.</p><p><a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/microsoft-abobe-patches-beef-windows-security-1C6358915">Keep reading...</a></p>