Microsoft had a very busy week, as the company managed to complete and release the patch needed to solve the critical flow discovered in its Internet Explorer browser.

Wednesday’s emergency was related to a data-binding vulnerability, which could have been  exploited to install information-stealing trojans on victims' machines. The Internet Explorer vulnerability could allow a remote hacker to execute code remotely if a user with an old or unauthorized browser version views a specially crafted Web page. A remote user could actually gain full administrative user rights.

There are several security firms which have reported that thousands of websites worldwide have been compromised with the attack code, and that most of them are based in Europe and Asia.
"This security update resolves a publicly disclosed vulnerability," Microsoft explained on its Web site.

"This security update is rated Critical for Internet Explorer 5.01, Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1, and Internet Explorer 7," Microsoft noted in the same statement.

"Protected Mode significantly reduces the ability of an attacker to write, alter or destroy data on the user's machine or to install malicious code," according to Microsoft's Internet Explorer Developer Center website, which also explained to the company’s clients that the feature is available for IE7 in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

Internet users must be careful, as the patch only works for the company’s original software and if an unauthorized version is being used when visiting a compromised Web site, users will be extremely vulnerable.