Microsoft fixes critical Internet Explorer flaw

Microsoft fixed four IE bugs Tuesday in its regularly-scheduled software update. The patches included one for the heavily-reported flaw that had been used by attackers over the past few weeks to take over the PCs of unsuspecting users. Yahoo News reports:

Although attacks based on the vulnerability have not been widespread, it is important that IE users now install the patch, said Neel Mehta, team lead of Internet Security Systems’ X-Force group. “It’s not of epic proportions,” he said. “But isolated attackers here and there have used it to install malware.”

The flaw was know to security experts in May. But it was not until vulnerable code was leaked on November 21, by a group calling itself Computer Terrorism that the full extent of the problem was realized.