The Security Mentor

This time it's a little complicated, and the good news is that bad guys aren't taking advantage of it yet.

Real Media files (like movies or sound clips) have a feature that is OK by itself but that allows some attacks on Internet Explorer to be more dangerous. It's like glycerine -- harmless, but if someone comes along with nitric acid they can make nitroglycerine with it.

Here's the What Does It Mean For You section.

• Run XP Service Pack 2. It stops many but not all of the attacks.
• Use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer. None of the relevant attacks work in Firefox.
• Be careful where you download movies and sound files. Even they can be dangerous these days.