Microsoft Releases Out-of-band Patch to Address Internet Explorer Vulnerability

Microsoft on Monday released a patch to address the recently discovered Internet Explorer vulnerability linked to a series of watering hole attacks.

The vulnerability was first seen being used in a drive-by-download attack on the Council on Foreign Relations’ (CFR) website.

“Today, we released MS13-008 to address the issue described in Security Advisory 2794220,” noted Dustin Childs, Group Manager of Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing group in a blog post. “We’ve seen only a limited number of attacks through an issue in Internet Explorer 6-8, but the potential exists that more customers could be affected.”

For customers that have automatic updates enabled, they will not need to take any action because the updates will be downloaded and installed automatically, Childs said. “For those manually updating, we strongly encourage you to apply this update as quickly as possible. As always, we recommend upgrading to Internet Explorer 9-10, as they are not impacted by this issue.”

For customers who applied the Fix it solution released late last month, the Fix it is no longer needed after the security update is installed, Microsoft said, noting that users should uninstall it after the update has been installed.

Microsoft is also hosting a live webcast at 1 p.m. PST on Monday, where Microsoft’s security team will provide a detailed review of the bulletin and answer questions in real-time. The webcast is free and you can register for it here.