Internet Explorer? Nein, non!


18 Jan 2010

Following advice to web surfers from the German government’s Federal Office for Information against using the Internet Explorer browser, France has followed suit with its CERTA agency recommending internet users avoid all versions.

This government advice comes in the wake of last week’s uncovering of security attacks against Google in China, when it was found that one of the security holes through which the hackers executed the attacks was an unknown flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

“This afternoon, Microsoft issued Security Advisory (979352) to help customers mitigate a Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability in Internet Explorer. The company has determined that Internet Explorer was one of the vectors used in targeted and sophisticated attacks targeted against Google and other corporate networks,” said Microsoft Security Response Center director Mike Reavey, according to Pcworld.com.

Microsoft says that this vulnerability exists within Internet Explorer 6 and does not affect later versions, and that furthermore the Google attacks were targeted and do not pose a risk to general users.

“These were not attacks against general users or consumers,” said Thomas Baumgaertner, a spokesperson for Microsoft in Germany, saying that the Google attacks were executed by “highly motivated people with a very specific agenda”, as reported on the Telegraph website.

By Marie Boran