Microsoft "Fix it" available for Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8

This past weekend we have alerted you about a vulnerability present in Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8 which has already been used in limited targeted attacks. Later versions of Internet Explorer (9 and 10) are not affected by this issue. As always, we recommend upgrading to the latest available. For those who are constrained to older versions, today we are providing a Microsoft “Fix it” solution designed to reduce the attack surface of this vulnerability.

This code-signed, one-click deployable Microsoft “Fix it” package uses the Windows application compatibility toolkit to make a small change at runtime to mshtml.dll ** every time Internet Explorer is loaded. For more details, you can refer to our previous blog post. You can apply this workaround by running the Microsoft Fix it 50971 from the link below. For enterprise deployment, please refer to Knowledge Base article 2794220, section “Deploying an application compatibility database across multiple computers”.

Applying this workaround will not interfere with the installation of the final security update that will address this issue. However, applying the workaround will have a small effect on the startup time of Internet Explorer. Therefore, as you are applying the final security update, you should uninstall the workaround as it will no longer be needed.

- Cristian Craioveanu, MSRC Engineering