Patch 7 IE Vulnerabilities, IE9 Beta Not Affected

Microsoft has patched no less than seven security vulnerabilities affecting various releases of Internet Explorer with the delivery of Microsoft Security Bulletin MS10-090 Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer.

According to the Redmond company, while four of the security flaws were privately reported, the remaining three had been publicly disclosed.

In fact, one of the vulnerabilities, rated Critical, was already being exploited in attacks in the wild since November 2010.

This is why customers should make sure to deploy the IE December 2010 patches as soon as possible.

“The most severe vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer,” revealed Ceri Gallacher, IE Servicing PM.

“Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights. This security update is rated Critical for Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, and Internet Explorer 8.”

The software giant explained that none of the patches impact the testing version of the next iteration of IE.

In this regard, early adopters running Internet Explorer 9 Beta do not have to patch their browser this month.

“The security update addresses the vulnerabilities by modifying the way that Internet Explorer handles objects in memory and script during certain processes.

"For more information about the vulnerabilities, see the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) subsection for the specific vulnerability entry under the next section, Vulnerability Information. This security update also addresses the vulnerability first described in Microsoft Security Advisory 2458511,” Gallacher added.

“The majority of customers have automatic updating enabled and will not need to take any action because this security update will be downloaded and installed automatically. Customers who have not enabled automatic updating need to check for updates and install this update manually.”

Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Beta is available for download here.

Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Platform Preview 7 (PP7) is available for download here.