Microsoft has posted a fix for a flaw in its Internet Explorer Web browser that could allow an unauthorized user to take control of someone else's computer.

The security hole, discovered by a graduate student in Germany, makes computers vulnerable to so-called "attack applets" than can slip in under Internet Explorer's radar to create and delete files - even re-format another computer's hard drive.

The flaw affects all versions of IE 4 and 5, as well as other programs that incorporate Microsoft's version of Java.

Microsoft said the threat of the new problem is low because it's hard to exploit it, and that so far, it knows of no users who have been affected.

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