The BBC website is among many to report the serious security flaw discovered in Microsoft's web browser, Internet Explorer v7. This flaw could allow criminals to take control of people's computers and steal passwords - it has come to light with gaming passwords being stolen, but the vulnerability could present other security issues for web users.

Microsoft has moved quickly to issue a security patch to fix the flaw, which has reportedly already affected as many as 10,000 websites. Since Internet Explorer is used by a majority of computer users the flaw could affect many webs users and some security experts have suggested that users changes their browsers to Firefox, Opera, Chrome or Apple's Safari system which are not vulnerable to this current flaw.

However, Microsoft have also provided this patch through their automated download system to user's PCs and they recommend that users do have this option selected to happen automatically in the case of these short-term issues.