This flaw is considered critical because these malicious URLs could be delivered to any XP user through any means: via an eMail solicitation, a chat room, a newsgroup posting, a malicious web page, or even processed automatically without the user clicking anything by merely visiting a malicious web page. (That"s bad.) Curiously, Microsoft was informed of this easily-demonstrated, quite significant, and trivial-to-fix, Windows XP defect back in June of 2002, but chose not to proactively address the significant vulnerability created for their users until the September 9th, 2002 with windows XP SP1
Note: This FREE 30 kbyte "XPdite" utility protects your Windows XP system until you are able to install Service Pack 1.