Emergency security patch issued by Microsoft to squash Internet Explorer zero day exploit

Graham Cluley
Graham Cluley
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Microsoft has released an out-of-cycle security update to protect Internet Explorer users against a vulnerability that was being exploited by malicious hackers.

Earlier this week Microsoft announced it would be issuing Security Update MS12-063, following the discovery last weekend by researcher Eric Romang that the previously unknown vulnerability was being used by a hacking gang to infect computers with the Poison Ivy Trojan.

Normally Microsoft releases security updates on a monthly schedule (known as “Patch Tuesday”), but as the heat rose with exploits using the attack and the likes of the German government urging users to stop using Internet Explorer, the software giant rightly moved to release an out-of-band emergency patch.

As well as defending against the zero-day vulnerability in versions of Internet Explorer, Microsoft’s security patch reportedly resolves four other remote code execution vulnerabilities that Microsoft says are not currently being exploited…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

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