Microsoft Releases Fix for VML Exploit

In what could be the quickest patch ever to be released by Microsoft, the company on Tuesday publicly issued a fix for the highly-publicized Vector Markup Language (VML) vulnerability affecting Office and Internet Explorer that surfaced last week and was being actively exploited by numerous attacks.

The exploits prompted two security firms to issue unofficial patches for the problem, and Microsoft promised on Friday to rush out out a fix. The company traditionally waits until its monthly Patch Tuesday to release updates, but it has issued out-of-cycle patches in the past when customers were at risk. Users can download the patch now from Windows Update.