Flaw in Internet Explorer was previously unknown, says security researcher
Cyber attacks on the China operations of Google and other businesses were engineered by exploiting a previously unknown flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser, according to security researcher McAfee Inc.

McAfee said that the criminals who engineered the attacks persuaded employees of the companies to click on a link to a website that secretly downloaded sophisticated malicious software onto their PCs.

“We have never seen attacks of this sophistication in the commercial space. We have previously only seen them in the government space,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, a vice president of research with McAfee…