The attackers waltzed into victims' computers, like burglars with a key to the back door, by exploiting such a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser. Microsoft rushed out a fix after learning of the attack.
How did the perpetrators learn about the flaw? Likely, they merely had to tap a thriving underground market, where a hole "wide enough to drive a truck through" can command hundreds of thousands of dollars, said Ken Silva, chief technology officer of VeriSign Inc. Such flaws can take months of full-time hacking to find.
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