After investigating into a major exploit incident which occurred on the weekend, Microsoft on Monday issued a security advisory aimed at providing users of its Internet Explorer browser with guidance and workarounds for combating a zero-day exploit aimed at various versions of the popular web browser.

The incident which caught Microsoft's eye emerged over the weekend when an unknown person published the exploit code to the Bugtraq mailing list, making it easier for hackers to download a harmful code onto users' computers.

Released as the Security Advisory 977981, the company's tool to fighting the vulnerability includes "workarounds for an issue that exposes a flaw in Cascading Style Sheets that could allow for remote code execution". The exploit has been confirmed to affect the Internet Explorer on "2000 Service Pack 4, and IE 6 and IE 7 on supported editions of XP, Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008".

The company has further shared that users running IE 7 on Windows Vista OS can simply configure the web browser to run in "Protected Mode", which could cut the impact of the vulnerability.

Although no active exploits have yet been reported, Microsoft is not relaxing as the issue is grave. The technology giant has asserted that "IE 5.01 Service Pack 4 and IE 8" on Windows supported versions have not made the list of affected browser versions.