Microsoft has failed to respond in any manner to the security company Secunia, which claims that it has discovered a vulnerability in Internet Explorer 7 in the very same day the browser was launched. Well, it couldn't have been a smooth debut for IE7, as it certainly won't be a smooth ride, but this is a case of the proverbial starting on the wrong foot.

"The vulnerability is caused due to an error in the handling of redirections for URLs with the "mhtml:" URI handler. This can be exploited to access documents served from another web site. Secunia has confirmed the vulnerability on a fully patched system with Internet Explorer 7.0 and Microsoft Windows XP SP2. Other versions may also be affected," revealed Secunia.

Secunia is also making available a test accessible via this link. The picture on the left is a result of this test performed with a freshly downloaded and installed Internet Explorer 7.

For a failed test, Secunia displays the following message: "Your browser is vulnerable! The test retrieved content from news.google.com in the context of your browser. This actually means that if you were logged into your bank account, any web site you are visiting would be able to retrieve confidential data from your bank. This could also be used to retrieve personal settings entered on sites like eBay or Paypal."