If you use Microsoft or Adobe software products, chances are that software is now dangerously out of date. Microsoft today released seven update bundles to fix two dozen security vulnerabilities in Windows and supported software. Adobe pushed patches to correct critical flaws in Acrobat, Reader and Flash Player, including a bug in Flash that already is being exploited.

Four of the seven updates from Microsoft earned a “critical” rating, which means the patches on fix vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malware or attackers to seize control over vulnerable systems without any help from users (save for perhaps visiting a hacked or malicious Web site). One of those critical patches — for Internet Explorer — plugs at least 14 holes in the default Windows browser.

Another critical patch plugs two vulnerabilities in Microsoft Word and Office Web Apps (including Office for Mac 2011). There are actually three patches this month that address Microsoft Office vulnerabilities, including MS14-082 and MS-14-083, both of which are rated “important.” A full breakdown of these and other patches released by Microsoft today is here.

Adobe’s Flash Player update brings the player to v. 16.0.0.235 for Windows and Mac users, and fixes at least six critical bugs in the software. Adobe said an exploit for one of the flaws, CVE-2014-9163, already exists in the wild.

“These updates address vulnerabilities that could potentially allow an attacker to take over the affected system,” the company said in its advisory.

To see which version of Flash you have installed, check this link. IE10/IE11 on Windows 8.x and Chrome should auto-update their versions of Flash. If your version of Chrome doesn’t show the latest version of Flash, you may need to restart the browser or manually force Chrome to check for updates (click the three-bar icon to the right of the address bar, select “About Google Chrome” and it should check then).

The most recent versions of Flash are available from the Flash home page, but beware potentially unwanted add-ons, like McAfee Security Scan. To avoid this, uncheck the pre-checked box before downloading, or grab your OS-specific Flash download from here.

Windows users who browse the Web with anything other than Internet Explorer may need to apply this patch twice, once with IE and again using the alternative browser (Firefox, Opera, e.g.).

Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader users will need to apply a critical update that fixes at least 20 critical security in these programs. See Adobe’s Reader advisory for more details on that. The latest updates live here.