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Speaking on The Microsoft Security blog, the company moved swiftly to refute suggestions that vulnerabilities in its SQL Server software were being exploited in the attacks.

"Microsoft's investigation

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has shown that there are no new or unknown vulnerabilities being exploited," says Bill Sisk, of the Microsoft Security Response Center.

"This wave is not a result of a vulnerability in Internet Information Services or Microsoft SQL Server. The attacks are facilitated by SQL injection exploits and are not issues related to IIS 6.0, ASP, ASP.Net or Microsoft SQL technologies."

Sisk goes on to point users in the direction of its advisory on how to avoid such attacks in the future.

The attacks have so far affected around half a million pages, causing them to spread malware when visited. So far, UN and Government sites have been hit by the attacks.