Last month, Google had shared a major announcement that it and various other companies had been hit by apparently successful hacker attacks, and the means of access of the wrong-doers was a much critical unpatched or "zero-day" hole in Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser.

Google has shared that it had managed to discover some definite attacks in mid-December, and these originated in China. The hackers, according to the company, had tried to break into Gmail accounts and steal information about various human rights activists.

The flaw in the Internet Explorer was apparently exploited to install a Trojan horse which ended up allowing complete remote control over a compromised computer. Although the security issue affects IE versions 6, 7 and 8, the only known attacks were made against IE6.

As has been shared by Microsoft, security measures prevented hackers from using the said zero-day flaw. The company claims that Protected Mode for IE 7 and 8, and Data Execution Protection for IE 8 had been put into place.