REDMOND, Wash. — Microsoft Corp. is taking the unusual step of issuing an emergency fix for a security hole in its Internet Explorer software 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 websites; 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.
Microsoft shipped a security update, rated “critical,” for the browser Wednesday. People with the Windows Update feature activated on their computers will get the patch automatically.
Thousands of websites already have been compromised by criminals looking to exploit the flaw.
