IE 0-Day Flaw Used In Chinese Attack

bheer writes "A zero-day attack on IE was used to carry out the cyber attack on Google and others that's been getting so much ink recently, reports The Register, quoting McAfee's CTO. While the web (and security) community has pointed out the problems with IE's many security flaws (and its sluggish update cycle) in the past, IE shows no sign of vanishing from the corporate landscape."

Comments

A major security flaw in IE?

[XPeter]

This is unheard of!

Re:A major security flaw in IE?

[Monkeedude1212]

No no no, you aren't seeing it.

Google can stay in China, or pull out, or do whatever its nefarious plan is, and now they can BLAME MICROSOFT!

Don't you know what this means?!?!?!?!?!?

Clearly this is all an elaborate ruse to market Chrome!

Re:A major security flaw in IE?

[Knara]

Google can stay in China, or pull out,

It's far too late for Google to pull out of China. It should have known that the pulling-out method is not a reliable form of birth control, and now it needs to take responsibility for it and China's love child, Baidu.

Re:A major security flaw in IE?

[CodeBuster]

This is unheard of!

Until it gets reported or exploited, then everyone knows about it.

Re:A major security flaw in IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using IE for years and my computer has never been hacked once. On the other hand people keep breaking into my bank account, web mail, and stealing my card information. Man, I just wish someone would protect those things like IE protects my computer.

Chairs...

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like the Chinese are doing a better job of trying to "fucking kill Google" than Ballmer can with their own software!

Re:Using Macs could have prevented this!

[Tubal-Cain]

Or any other browser. Like, for example, Chrome.

Re:More than just IE

[dclozier]

So IE is partially to blame, but you can't just say that this is MS's fault.

You really are new here. Of course it was all Microsoft's fault. ;)

Re:More than just IE

[TheRaven64]

you can't just say that this is MS's fault

Of course we can, this is Slashdot!

Re:You know what this means

[plover]

When Ballmer said he was going to "f*ck!ng kill Google," you all just laughed (and dodged the occasional chair.)

But who's laughing now, Sergei? Who's laughing now?

Re:It's not stupidity

[Zero__Kelvin]

"It's genuinely difficult to not get locked into somebody's product stack, and Microsoft's is, on the whole, no worse than anybody else's."

Right ... in the same way that you are no worse than the typical moron that would make such a statement.

Re:It's not stupidity

[Runaway1956]

That's one point of view. Another is, after 4 to 6 warnings, no one can claim to have been hit by a "drive by" without any warning at all.

"Look here, stupid. Firefox warned you TWICE that some unknown software could be malware. After which, Windows warned you twice. Look at the logs. You dismissed all four warnings, and purposefully installed this crap onto this machine. I think that we should go up front, and speak to the boss about your willful, and deliberate violation of company rules and policies."

An incident or six like this would probably motivate some people to READ the warnings, and give them at least a passing thought.

Re:?Senior?

[hairyfeet]

Good God man! Don't even make jokes about the Bonzi Buddy! Do you even know the horror it inflicted upon poor PC repairmen across the country? Customers driven to the point of madness, screaming "Just make it stop! For the love of God PLEASE JUST MAKE IT STOP!!!"

Now you have old Bob hiding in the corner, crying and muttering "purple monkey" to himself over and over. Have you no sense of decency sir?

Re:Using Macs could have prevented this!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why you should install XP AntiVirus 2010.