Virus Poses As MSoft Security Patch

A virus posing as a security patch from Microsoft is circulating on the Internet, Microsoft confirmed Monday.

The virus is being distributed in a hoax e-mail that advertises a patch for a series of vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser and Outlook software. The authentic patch for those flaws was actually released in February. Microsoft said that it has not updated the patch and that the e-mail is in fact fraudulent.

The e-mail uses a Microsoft address and has the subject line "Internet Security Update." It tells users to immediately run an attached ".exe" file with the name q216309.exe, which a Microsoft spokeswoman confirmed is a virus.

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