Microsoft today released Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability an emergency software patch to plug Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability a critical security hole in its Internet Explorer ( IE ) Web browser that attackers are already using to break into Windows computers . The software giant said Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability it learned Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability about the weakness ( CVE-2018-8653 ) after receiving a report Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability from Google about a new vulnerability being used in targeted attacks . Satnam Narang , senior research engineer at Tenable , said Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability the vulnerability affects Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability the following installations of IE : Internet Explorer 11 from Windows 7 to Windows 10 as well as Windows Server 2012 , 2016 and 2019 ; IE 9 on Windows Server 2008 ; and IE 10 on Windows Server 2012 . “ As the flaw is being actively exploited Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability in the wild , users are urged to update Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability their systems as soon as possible to reduce the risk of compromise , ” Narang said . According to a somewhat sparse advisory about the patch , malware or attackers could use the flaw to break into Windows computers simply by getting a user to visit a hacked or booby-trapped Web site . An attacker could then install programs ; view , change , or delete data ; or create new accounts with full user rights . Microsoft says users who have Windows Update enabled and have applied Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability the latest security updates are protected automatically . Windows 10 users can manually check for updates this way ; instructions on how to do this for earlier versions of Windows are here .