In a Friday announcement, Microsoft revealed that it intends releasing an "out of band" emergency patch on Monday, to fix a Windows flaw that hackers are apparently exploiting with the help of a "highly virulent strain" of malware.

According to the details forwarded by Microsoft, the vulnerability - which affects all the versions of Windows - involves the manner in which Windows handles shortcut files; and was initially used for spreading the Stuxnet worm via USB drives.

Two weeks back, Microsoft had issued an advisory, which also included information about how to work-around the flaw, noting that the vulnerability is essentially in the code that processes shortcut files ending in ".lnk."

Saying that "releasing the update out of band is the best thing to do to help protect our customers," Microsoft Security Response Center spokesman Christopher Budd said in a Friday statement: "We're able to confirm that, in the past few days, we've seen an increase in attempts to exploit the vulnerability."

Adding that Microsoft deemed it more appropriate to release an emergency patch rather than waiting till its next scheduled Patch Tuesday, on August 10, the Microsoft Malware Protection Center revealed that ever since malware writers have learned of the flaw, several techniques to exploit it are showing up on the Internet -with a newly developed member Sality. AT having especially caught the attention of security researchers.