Close on the heels of the requests by the German government and security experts to Internet users about temporarily stopping the use of Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser because of a security issue that allowed hackers to attack some systems, Microsoft said in a late Wednesday statement that it has fixed the IE security bug.

While Microsoft started offering a temporary fix for the IE security issue on Wednesday, the company revealed that an IE update including a permanent repair to the security flaw will be released Friday. In addition, Microsoft also said that the computers of most of the Windows users are capable of automatically downloading the soon-to-be-released update for the IE security flaw.

According to Microsoft, while the temporary repair requires the IE users to click on a link, the permanent repair will be automatically installed on the Windows OS computers which have been set up to receive important updates.

The vulnerability being patched by Microsoft was identified last week by a Luxembourg-based security researcher, whose computer was infected when he was analyzing a server used in 2011 for launching a cyber industrial espionage campaign on several chemical makers as well as defense contractors.

Though it was largely because of a potential attack risk that users were urged to use other web browsers than IE, Microsoft spokeswoman Yunsun Wee said that the security flaw had not led to any hacking attacks on the computers of "the vast majority" of IE users.