One More Reason to Upgrade: IE8 Not Affected by New Critical Vulnerability
If you are still using Internet Explorer 6 (IE6), then you need to get with the times and upgrade to something newer; and if you’re going to leave the outdated IE6 behind and move on to newer IE versions, why not move to IE8, the latest and best IE version to come out of Redmond. Best as in feature rich, I don’t want to get into a semantics fight here.
Now you could also upgrade to Internet Explorer 7. After all, anything’s better than IE6. There is one reason why you should make the jump straight to IE8: it is more secure than IE7. Microsoft has recently announced that it is aware of a new critical vulnerability that affects Internet Explorer which if successfully exploited by a person with malicious intent, could lead to remote code execution. It sounds bad, I know. What’s even worse is that exploit code for the vulnerability in question has already been released online.
Microsoft has responded by releasing Security Advisory 977981. In it the Redmond-based software giant provides a few additional details:
“Our investigation so far has shown that Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 4 and Internet Explorer 8 on all supported versions of Microsoft Windows are not affected, and that Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, and Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7 on supported editions of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008 are affected. The vulnerability exists as an invalid pointer reference of Internet Explorer. It is possible under certain conditions for a CSS/Style object to be accessed after the object is deleted. In a specially-crafted attack, Internet Explorer attempting to access a freed object can lead to running attacker-supplied code.”
According to Microsoft, no attacks attempting to exploit this vulnerability have been detected. To stay safe IE6 and IE7 users are advised to disable Active Scripting in the Internet and Local intranet security zones. Better yet, you can upgrade to IE8. As security researchers at Symantec have pointed out, it’s only a matter of time until a fully-functional exploit becomes available, so it pays to upgrade.
“The exploit currently exhibits signs of poor reliability, but we expect that a fully-functional reliable exploit will be available in the near future. When this happens, attackers will have the ability to insert the exploit into Web sites, infecting potential visitors. For an attacker to launch a successful attack, they must lure victims to their malicious Web page or a Web site they have compromised. In both cases, the attack requires JavaScript to exploit Internet Explorer,” commented Symantec's Security Intel Analysis Team.
If you would like to get Internet Explorer 8, you can grab it straight from FindMySoft here.
Now you could also upgrade to Internet Explorer 7. After all, anything’s better than IE6. There is one reason why you should make the jump straight to IE8: it is more secure than IE7. Microsoft has recently announced that it is aware of a new critical vulnerability that affects Internet Explorer which if successfully exploited by a person with malicious intent, could lead to remote code execution. It sounds bad, I know. What’s even worse is that exploit code for the vulnerability in question has already been released online.
Microsoft has responded by releasing Security Advisory 977981. In it the Redmond-based software giant provides a few additional details:
“Our investigation so far has shown that Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 4 and Internet Explorer 8 on all supported versions of Microsoft Windows are not affected, and that Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, and Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7 on supported editions of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008 are affected. The vulnerability exists as an invalid pointer reference of Internet Explorer. It is possible under certain conditions for a CSS/Style object to be accessed after the object is deleted. In a specially-crafted attack, Internet Explorer attempting to access a freed object can lead to running attacker-supplied code.”
According to Microsoft, no attacks attempting to exploit this vulnerability have been detected. To stay safe IE6 and IE7 users are advised to disable Active Scripting in the Internet and Local intranet security zones. Better yet, you can upgrade to IE8. As security researchers at Symantec have pointed out, it’s only a matter of time until a fully-functional exploit becomes available, so it pays to upgrade.
“The exploit currently exhibits signs of poor reliability, but we expect that a fully-functional reliable exploit will be available in the near future. When this happens, attackers will have the ability to insert the exploit into Web sites, infecting potential visitors. For an attacker to launch a successful attack, they must lure victims to their malicious Web page or a Web site they have compromised. In both cases, the attack requires JavaScript to exploit Internet Explorer,” commented Symantec's Security Intel Analysis Team.
If you would like to get Internet Explorer 8, you can grab it straight from FindMySoft here.
