According to reports, Microsoft is issuing an emergency fix for a security hole in Internet Explorer that has exposed millions of users to having their computers taken over by hackers.
The “zero-day” vulnerability, which came to light last week, allows criminals to take over victims’ machines simply by steering them to infected Web sites; users don’t have to download anything for their computers to get infected, which makes the flaw in Internet Explorer’s programming code so dangerous. Internet Explorer is the world’s most widely used Web browser, although I personally have been using FireFox for a few years.
Microsoft said it plans to ship a security update, rated “critical,” for the browser on Wednesday.
People with the Windows Update feature activated on their computers will get the patch automatically.
Thousands of Web sites already have been compromised by criminals looking to exploit the flaw. The bad guys have loaded malicious code onto those sites that automatically infect visitors’ machines if they’re using Internet Explorer and haven’t employed a complicated series of workarounds that Microsoft has suggested.
Google and firefox must be licking their lips because of this. i wonder how the browser stats will look in 3 months time.
I have been a victim of this practice recently and had several valuable domains stolen as a direct result of my email being compromised through internet explorer. I switched to firefox permanently and can’t say I’ll ever go back!