Well, it took a bit longer than many security experts expected, but the first big security threat for Windows XP users has arrived. The zero day vulnerability will be quickly patched by Microsoft—for supported platforms at least. That means that this will be the first of many open wounds for Windows XP—known vulnerabilities left exposed because the OS is no longer supported by Microsoft.

Security vendor FireEye notified Microsoft about exploits detected in the wild being used against Internet Explorer. The attack in question is specific to IE 9, 10, and 11, but according to Microsoft the underlying vulnerability exists in all versions of Internet Explorer, as well as all supported versions of the Windows operating system other than Server Core. The attack also seems to rely on having Adobe Flash installed.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here