"In light of Adobe's recently released security updates for its Flash Player, Microsoft is working closely with Adobe to release an update for Adobe Flash in IE10 to protect our mutual customers," Yunsun Wee, director of the company's Trustworthy Computing Group, said in a Tuesday statement. "This update will be available shortly."

Microsoft's promise to quickly deliver a Flash security update for Windows 8's version of Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) was a turn-about from its stance last week, when the firm said it didn't plan on patching Flash Player .

Long-time Windows blogger first reported Microsoft's change of heart.

Microsoft, not Adobe, is responsible for patching Flash Player in Windows 8 because the company took a page from Google's playbook and integrated the popular media software with IE10, the new operating system's browser. Microsoft announced that move in late May, when its top IE executive, Dean Hachamovitch, said, "By updating Flash through Windows Update, like IE, we make for customers."

Convenient, perhaps. But even before the official launch of Windows 8, Microsoft fell behind Adobe in its Flash patching.