This week, Yahoo will upgrade Yahoo Messenger instant messaging to patch a hole in the audio voice feature, which allows hackers to take advantage of it to control the affected system.

According to a warning posted by Yahoo on its Web site, if exploited the vulnerability could allow an attacker to take control of the entire Windows system running the faulty Yahoo Messenger software.

Yahoo fixes Yahoo Messenger vulnerability images 1 According to Yahoo, all Yahoo Messenger versions released before March 13 are affected by the vulnerability.

To successfully hack, an attacker will have to entice Yahoo Messenger users to access a dangerous website. The vulnerability lies in the ActiveX driver, a popular but controversial feature of Internet Explorer.

Yahoo recommends that users quickly upgrade Yahoo Messenger as soon as the upgrade for this software is released.