The German and French governments have already warned their citizen’s about the dangers of using outdated Internet browsers.
Now, a Welsh computer expert is calling on all Internet users to ensure they have upgraded their Internet Explorer software to a recent version or switched to another browser.
He told us:
“Browsers are the software program most people use to access the World Wide Web. You may have heard in the news recently about Google threatening to withdraw from China after the email accounts of some of its users were targeted by hackers.
“It would appear that Google’s security was compromised by some of its users still using the Microsoft Internet Explorer (version 6) Browser.
“This [IE6] is a very old piece of software with many known security holes. Version 8 is available to download from Microsoft for free and it is highly recommended that all users upgrade as soon as possible.
“There has been talk about other possible problems with the latest version of Internet Explorer, but none of these have yet to be seen in the wild.”
If you are in any doubt, either upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer (IE8) which can be downloaded from Microsoft’s website at http://www.microsoft.com/UK/windows/internet-explorer/ or consider switching to an alternative browser like Firefox which you can find at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/ Again, the download is free.
Update: Microsoft will be releasing a patch tomorrow. They said:
“This is a standard cumulative update, accelerated from our regularly scheduled February release, for Internet Explorer with an aggregate severity rating of Critical. It addresses the vulnerability related to recent attacks against Google and a small subset of corporations, as well as several other vulnerabilities. Once applied, customers are protected against the known attacks that have been widely publicized.”
So now we know.
