Holes found in Windows XP update

Barely hours after home users started securing their PCs with a key update for Windows XP, security experts have found ways around it.

SP2 provides a single place for people to control anti-virus software, firewall and XP updates as well as blocking pop-up ads, some spyware and warning about the dangers of e-mail attachments.

But security expert Secunia has posted information about a bug in Internet Explorer that could, it says, let a malicious website "plant an arbitrary executable file in a user's start-up folder".

The vulnerabilities discovered have are not being exploited in the wild and have only been demonstrated as working in ideal circumstances.

However, Microsoft has produced a so-called hotfix for SP2 to help tackle a problem some people are having with programs that use particular net addresses.