German government warns against using MS Explorer

[Abarbarian]

"The German government has warned web users to find an alternative browser to Internet Explorer to protect security.

The warning from the Federal Office for Information Security comes after Microsoft admitted IE was the weak link in recent attacks on Google's systems.

Microsoft rejected the warning, saying that the risk to users was low and that the browsers' increased security setting would prevent any serious risk.

However, German authorities say that even this would not make IE fully safe."




http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8463516.stm




Something tells me the Germans have not forgotten the 40's yet.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Did you see the other warning there?

You know, that one about marching into Poland...

 

[Abarbarian]

Did you see the other warning there?

You know, that one about marching into Poland...

Doubt if they will try marching east until summer, look what happened to them last time they tried in winter.

 

[Abarbarian]

More on the vunerability in IE,

http://www.daniweb.com/news/story253418.html


"Worryingly though, McAfee does insist that while "this attack is especially deadly on older systems that are running XP and Internet Explorer 6" and this was the focus of these recent attacks, Internet Explorer does remain "vulnerable on all of Microsoft’s most recent operating system releases, including Windows 7". McAfee says that new versions of Windows simply make exploiting the vulnerability harder, not impossible.

It becomes even more worrying when you appreciate that the code used in the Google attack to exploit the as yet unpatched vulnerability has now been published on the web for anyone to grab and make use of. Unlike some other news publications, DaniWeb will not be making things easier yet by linking to the website concerned."

"A 'Microsoft Spokesperson' has just contacted me to say this in response to the Internet Explorer vulnerability news:

Microsoft is aware of public exploit code released that impacts customers using Internet Explorer 6 and of limited, targeted attacks attempting to use this vulnerability against Internet Explorer (IE) 6. As a result of the reports, we released an update to Security Advisory 979352 to alert customers and provide actionable guidance and tools to help with protections against exploit of this IE vulnerability:

Customers using Internet Explorer 8 are not affected by currently known attacks and exploits due to the improved security protections in IE8. To help protect our customers, we recommend that all customers immediately upgrade to Internet Explorer 8. Customers should also consider applying the workarounds and mitigations provided in our Security Advisory such as putting Internet zone security settings to High.

Microsoft teams are continuing to work around the clock on an update and we will take appropriate action to protect customers when the update has met the quality bar for broad distribution. That may include releasing an out-of-cycle security update."

​

 

[Abarbarian]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=6805&tag=col1;post-29793

"Thanks to the German government’s warning to IE users to dump the browser due to the recently discovered vulnerability, Firefox has seen a huge increase in downloads.

According to Ken Kovash, Mozilla’s manager of analytics, downloads of the browser have jumped some 300,000 since last Friday."




Trouble is if everyone switches to FF so will the crims.