Microsoft to Fix Critical Internet Explorer Security Flaw

[BigusDicus]

Microsoft to Fix Critical Internet Explorer Security Flaw

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

 

 

 

SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft Corp. is taking the unusual step of issuing an emergency fix for a security hole in its Internet Explorer software that has exposed millions of users to having their computers taken over by hackers.

 

The "zero-day" vulnerability, which came to light last week, allows criminals to take over victims' machines simply by steering them to infected Web sites; users don't have to download anything for their computers to get infected, which makes the flaw in Internet Explorer's programming code so dangerous. Internet Explorer is the world's most widely used Web browser.

 

Microsoft said it plans to ship a security update, rated "critical," for the browser on Wednesday. People with the Windows Update feature activated on their computers will get the patch automatically.

 

Thousands of Web sites already have been compromised by criminals looking to exploit the flaw. The bad guys have loaded malicious code onto those sites that automatically infect visitors' machines if they're using Internet Explorer and haven't employed a complicated series of workarounds that Microsoft has suggested.

 

Microsoft said it has seen attacks targeting the flaw only in Internet Explorer 7, the most widely used version, but has cautioned that all other current editions of the browser are vulnerable.

 

Microsoft rarely issues security fixes for its software outside of its regular monthly updates. The company last did it in October, and a year and half before that.

[Samsonite]

"December 17th, 2008

 

Has Internet Explorer ever been safe?

 

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 5:08 am

 

http://blogs.zdnet.com/igeneration/?p=670

 

"....This morning, I put forward the claim that Internet Explorer, in recent times (this decade) has not been secure, and shouldn’t be used unless absolutely necessary.

 

Back in the day when Internet Explorer was more of an experiment than a viable browser, the iexplore.exe application was heavily tied into Windows, the explorer.exe application. If one faltered, more likely to be the former, the other would almost automatically screw up too. This meant, you got a bug or fault with Internet Explorer, that same bug would be replicated in Windows Explorer. This caused serious issues, hence why Internet Explorer 7 was entirely separate from Windows and could be easily updateable and removable.

 

When a doctor of computing engineering tells the world not to watch or download porn through Internet Explorer, a world class and highly respected writer, that’s when you know a browser has a problem. This new-ish threat which came to light about a severe vulnerability in the browser, when reported by the BBC live on the BBC News channel, said:

 

“…people should stop using the Internet Explorer web browser, and revert to a rival browser. Internet Explorer, of course being known around the world, and having the dominant marketshare of browsers, should not be used because of a reported zero-day attack.” [Tuesday 16th, around 3pm GMT]..."

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You can read the entire article at the link at the top of this page.

Edited December 18, 2008 by Scalawag