Internet Explorer Found in Serious Security Flaw
by John Paczkowski
Posted on December 16, 2008 at 11:41 AM PT
There’s a critical security hole in Internet Explorer, Microsoft’s (MSFT) flagship browser.
Well, there’s a shocker. IE’s catalog of vulnerabilities and the security bulletins announcing them are so voluminous and overlarge at this point, it takes Security Focus 18 pages to list them all. So reports today that IE suffers from a vulnerability that affords attackers access to any sensitive data on your PC isn’t unusual. What is unusual is that the flaw–found in all Windows versions of the browser–has gone unpatched for so long that it’s being widely exploited. “Based on our stats, since the vulnerability has gone public, roughly 0.2 percent of users worldwide may have been exposed to Web sites containing exploits of this latest vulnerability,” the Microsoft Malware Protection Center said Saturday. “That percentage may seem low, however it still means that a significant number of users have been affected. The trend for now is going upwards: we saw an increase of over 50 percent in the number of reports today compared to yesterday.”
And that was three days ago (the Microsoft Malware Protection Center has been oddly silent the past few days).
What’s an IE user to do? Microsoft has a few suggestions–“follow our Protect Your PC guidance” (… BAHAHAHAHA)–but really, at this point it’s obvious what needs to be done. Find. Yourself. Another. Browser.
Here’s looking forward to the next browser market share report….
[Image credit: Bill Navarro]
Comments
Wow! I use Mozilla becuase it’s faster but i’m shocked that there’s a loop hole. Billions of users browse Explorer…
Posted by Skip Jarvis at December 16th, 2008 at 11:47 amI was about to get all bent out of shape thinking you were going to support one specific browser over IE. Appreciate the balance with FireFox, Safari and Opera…also noticed no mention of the abomination Google is passing off. I agree that it has no place in a post about secure browsing.
Posted by Dominic Pannone at December 16th, 2008 at 12:41 pmUse Firefox or Safari. IE is a disaster.
Posted by RON NORRIS at December 16th, 2008 at 6:18 pm