One More Reason To Stop Using Internet Explorer (IE)

IT Security

We don’t like to be doom mongers when it comes to technology because things are rarely as bad as they seem, but Microsoft just revealed a bug in Internet Explorer that effectively makes the browser as secure as leaving a luxury sedan unlocked with the keys in it in a bad neighborhood.

The bug was discovered by security firm FireEye and reported to Microsoft. According to the Microsoft report, “The vulnerability may corrupt memory in a way that could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the current user within Internet Explorer.” If you’re using any Internet Explorer version from 6-11, which is basically all of them that will run on modern hardware, an attacker could run any code they want on your computer just by getting you to visit a malicious webpage. It’s so severe that Venture Beat reported “The U.S. government issued an advisory warning to people not to use Microsoft’s browser.” In terms of recommendations against using something, that’s about as high as it comes.

“The U.S. government issued an advisory warning to people not to use Microsoft’s browser.”

Using the browser that comes preinstalled with your Windows computer is easy–your corporate intranet might even be designed to work with it–but Firefox and Google Chrome are both far more advanced and offer a much richer user experience. If you use Internet Explorer right now, your best option is to switch to Chrome or Firefox.

If you have no choice but to stick with IE, Microsoft outlined some actions to mitigate the issue here. And don’t worry about your back office Windows Servers right now because Server 2003 and later all run in enhanced security configuration.