Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser showed more weaknesses this month when the company announced it found yet another security vulnerability within the program. The security risk affects not only Internet Explorer but also about a dozen other programs, including the operating system and Office applications such as Word, Outlook and PowerPoint. The weakness could let a hacker gain access to a computer by writing malicious code into a JPEG file -- the most widely used photograph format on the Internet. That means you could simply go to a Web site that displays a JPEG photograph and instantly be vulnerable to a hack. Fortunately, Microsoft has released a patch on its Web site (http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com) that will fix the problem.
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