What you should know about Microsoft's emergency IE patch

So far 2010 hasn't been kind to the Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser. It is only March, and Microsoft is releasing the second emergency out-of-band patch to respond to a zero-day exploit in the wild.

Microsoft released security bulletin MS10-018 today -- an update rated as Critical which includes 10 patches affecting all versions of Internet Explorer, including the current zero-day exploit being used to attack IE6 and IE7 browsers. Exploit code for the IE zero-day, dubbed "iepeers", is circulating on the internet.

Qualys CTO Wolfgang Kandek wrote a blog post stating "Microsoft's decision to accelerate the release rather than waiting until next Patch Tuesday on April 13th is an indication that attacks against the "iepeers" vulnerability are on the rise."