We've all become accustomed to Microsoft's monthly Patch Tuesday. Seldom is it that Microsoft will publish outside of that timeframe, and generally only for extremely critical problems. Such is the case for a recently discovered security flaw in IE and the Microsoft Active Library Template. The flaw, described in a Microsoft Security Bulletin, affects all versions of IE from 5 onward, including IE8, across multiple platforms.

The problem was severe enough to warrant an immediate patch, which Redmond has already made available via Windows Update. The flaw extended beyond just IE, is affecting certain components of the Visual Studio suite as well. This could result in the development of ActiveX controls that shared this flaw. A patch has also been published to address that flaw, to ensure that more vulnerable ActiveX controls do not get pushed out.