A new report from a third party security firm says that Microsoft only issued 83 software security bulletins in 2012, far fewer than the company did in 2011 and 2010. From Neowin:

Today, the third-party security firm Secunia sent Neowin a press release with their own report on Microsoft security bulletins in the past year. The report points out that Microsoft issued just 83 software security bulletins in 2012. That's far less than the 100 bulletins Microsoft launched in 2011 and the 106 that were issued in 2010. Secunia also said there was a lower number of bulletins that were considered to be "critical" by Microsoft in 2012 compared to the past couple of years. It praises Microsoft’s Security Development Lifecycle initiative for reducing the number of critical software issues.

Secunia did note a couple of specific security issues that were later fixed by Microsoft in 2012.

 Report: Microsoft cuts down on security bulletins in 2012