The Security Mentor

This fixes a pretty serious problem, though I haven't heard of bad guys taking advantage of the problem yet.

Microsoft Internet Explorer has a bug in the way it displays pictures (the type of picture with ".jpg" or ".jpeg" in the name). The bug is so serious that a bad guy could put together a picture file which would derail Internet Explorer and take over your computer.

You need this update even if you've stopped browsing with Internet Explorer (tell me you've stopped. Please tell me you've stopped). That's because a lot of other programs in Windows use pieces of Internet Explorer to display things. You could be vulnerable without ever clicking on the blue "E".

I've been afraid of something like this happening because it's so hard to defend against.

Today, log in to your Administrator account (you shouldn't be using it routinely) and go to the Start menu, choose Windows Update, and follow the instructions.

How do you protect yourself from problems like this? There was a similar problem in the competing Mozilla browser recently, so you're at risk with any software. Keeping your software up to date helps, but only if the good guys fix the problem before the bad guys start exploiting it. Keeping backups will help you recover from a problem, antivirus software may alert you if something tries to turn your machine into a zombie, but really the best I can offer is stay out of bad neighborhoods. Legitimate web sites aren't likely to try hijacking your computer. Web sites that engage in illegal activity are often unethical as well.