Microsoft Corp. issued a record-breaking number of software security updates today, shipping patches that plug at least 31 different security flaws in its Windows operating systems and other software. More than half of the security holes Microsoft plugged with June’s patch batch earned a “critical,” severity rating, meaning Redmond believes attackers could exploit the flaws to break into vulnerable systems without any help from the victims. What’s more, Microsoft is warning that it expects to see publicly available reliable exploit code for most of the vulnerabilities it has issued patches for today. According to Symantec Corp., this is the largest number of vulnerabilities Microsoft has ever addressed in a single patch release (the previous record was set in Dec. 2008, when Microsoft issued 28 security updates in one go). Probably the most important of today’s updates is a critical patch that addresses at least eight security holes in various versions