14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft recently confirmed that a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer could be used to compromise computers running all but two versions of the browser, with the company even revealing that a limited number of attacks has already been detected.
Unfortunately, Windows XP is one of the affected platforms, as the operating system which no longer receives support from Microsoft is running vulnerable versions of Internet Explorer.
Windows XP, which is still installed on nearly 28 percent of the desktop computers across the world, is no longer receiving patches and security updates from the software giant, which means that every single vulnerability found in the operating system remain unfixed.
Microsoft warned that such a thing could happen, so it recommended users still running Windows XP to upgrade to a newer platform as soon as possible, in order to avoid becoming vulnerable to attacks.
Security experts claim that disabling the VGX.dll, which according to Microsoft is responsible for rendering of VML (Vector Markup Language) code in webpages, could be the easiest way to keep your computer fully protected, but moving to another browser is always the fastest method to avoid getting hacked:
“This happened a bit quicker than I expected but it is a sign of things to come: the vulnerability applies to Windows XP, IE6, IE7 and IE8 are listed as affected and attackers will soon adapt the exploit to work against these older versions of IE as well. Since you will not get a patch for your operating system, deregistering the DLL will be your best option to defend your systems. BTW, Microsoft still lists IE6, IE7 and IE8 in these advisories because they run under Windows 2003, which has another year of support left in it,” Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of Qualys, said.
If you'd like to deregister the vulnerable DLL file, open a Command Prompt window with administrator privileges and run the following command:
The company says that it's still investigating the issue and is now working on a full-time patch to keep all computers protected, but Windows XP users will of course miss out on the fix since this version of the operating system is no longer supported. Consumers are recommended to switch to a different browser or use the aforementioned workaround to block any potential exploit.