Your Daily Computer Security Tips

The next regularly scheduled software update from Microsoft is August 11. However, the Company is taking the unusual step of releasing two emergency patches now. One fixes a critical flaw in Internet Explorer. The other, rated “moderate”, repairs a vulnerability in Visual Studio, which is a program used to develop forms, Web sites, applications and graphical user interfaces.

It is not entirely clear what is being repaired. But when Microsoft releases an emergency patch like this, it usually means the vulnerability is being exploited by the hackers. Microsoft claims that is not the case this time.

The flaw seems to be related to that ActiveX bug that was identified earlier this month. Microsoft issued a kill-bit, which allows users to disable the ActiveX control, or mini-program. However, this did not fix the underlying problem. So new attacks are possible on your computer unless you install the latest patch.

Security experts claim that there are thousands of malicious Web sites that use this ActiveX bug to launch attacks against other computers. Microsoft was told about this particular bug over a year ago. Anyway, go to the Microsoft Update site now, and get the fix.

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