A vulnerability found in Microsoft Internet Explorer at the beginning of this week has now been patched. Internet Explorer 6 through to 11, on all versions of Windows including XP were left susceptible to attack. Although recently telling users that they had ended support for Windows XP and would no longer be supplying bug fixes or security updates, Microsoft has also included a Security update for IE users on Windows XP.

Adrienne Hall, general manager of Trustworthy Computing at Microsoft, said in a blog post.

Even though Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft and is past the time we normally provide security updates, we’ve decided to provide an update for all versions of Windows XP

We made this exception based on the proximity to the end of support for Windows XP.  The reality is there have been a very small number of attacks based on this particular vulnerability and concerns were, frankly, overblown.

Although this security update has been released for XP, Microsoft are still encouraging users to move to newer Windows versions and use the latest Internet Explorer version.

Published by Matilda Cowling