Microsoft has released an urgent security advisory describing a new vulnerability in Internet Explorer (IE) that allows malicious code to run on user systems should the users visit a malicious website. IE 6–8 have been confirmed to be affected; it is not clear if IE 9 beta is similarly affected.

Trend Micro offers a variety of solutions to help protect users. For home users, the free tool Browser Guard offers protection against this vulnerability without any need for updates. Browser Guard is a free add-on to IE that protects users by preventing browser exploits and analyzes in-browser scripts for malicious characteristics and behaviors. This provides users proactive protection against vulnerabilities, as this incident demonstrates.

For enterprise users, both Deep Security and OfficeScan with the Intrusion Defense Firewall (IDF) plug-in also protects against this threat with the updated rules released earlier today.