Microsoft to push out emergency patch

January 7, 2009 Computer News

Microsoft alerted customers that the company would deliver an update to fix a flaw in all versions of its Internet computer_by_lulu2000 Explorer browser, after online criminals accelerated their exploitation of the issue.
The software giant first described the issue as a problem in the way Internet Explorer handles a particular object in memory, potentially causing an exploitable crash.
In response to the risk to customers and mindful of the challenges customers face deploying updates during this time of year, Microsoft immediately mobilized security engineering teams worldwide to develop, test and deliver a security update of suitable quality for worldwide distribution in the unprecedented time of eight days.
Microsoft had initially believed the vulnerability affected only Internet Explorer 7, but discovered that the issue affects all versions of the browsers on all Windows operating systems.
While less than a percent of users had possibly been affected, the Microsoft analysts warned that the use of the attack was accelerating.