France Tells Its Citizens To Abandon IE, Others Disagree

Freistoss writes "Microsoft still has not released a patch for a major zero-day flaw in IE6 that was used by Chinese hackers to attack Google. After sample code was posted on a website, calls began for Microsoft to release an out-of-cycle patch. Now, France has joined Germany in recommending its citizens abandon IE altogether, rather than waiting for a patch. Microsoft still insists IE8 is the 'most secure browser on the market' and that they believe IE6 is the only browser susceptible to the flaw. However, security researchers warned that could soon change, and recommended considering alternative browsers as well." PCWorld seems to be taking the opposite stance arguing that blaming IE for attacks is a dangerous approach that could cause a false sense of security.

Comments

love the recommendation

[alain94040]

The link to the official French recommendation is here: CERTA-2010-ALE-001

Quoting from it (rough translation): "while waiting for the editor [Microsoft] to correct this vulnerability, we recommend people use an alternate browser.

--
are you a startup founder looking for co-founders?

Re:love the recommendation

[jedidiah]

IOW, they are so unable and unwilling to upgrade from IE6 that ANY CHANGE WHAT SO EVER would be as equally drastic as another.

You could entirely replace their machine with a Mac and they would be no less traumatized than if you simply installed IE8 for them behind their back.

Tear down

[drDugan]

"Don't Kill the Messenger: Blaming IE for Attacks is Dangerous"

Actually, IE is not the messenger, its the source of at least one know security hole that participated in this problem.

The article fails to explain how blaming the software with a known exploit is dangerous.

They assert it will create a "false sense of security" because there exist other methods of attack (other software with security flaws). Even if they did have support for other security holes, this reasoning is an absurd logical fallacy. Amazingly, the author doesn't even have support for the premise of the illogic it's based on an *implication* from a quote by McAfee CTO George Kurtz.

  FTA:

The main thing to keep in mind is that these attacks go beyond Internet Explorer and that simply switching browsers is not an adequate defense.

This is completely absurd FUD. IE *was used*, it is insecure, and there is no fix (yet). These conclusions come right from this article and others.

Obvious conclusion: use different software. This conclusion is also supported by the long and consistent history of security issues with IE. I think, after reading this and other articles, it is more dangerous to continue to assert that IE is secure.

Re:Tear down

[Simon (S2)]

The main thing to keep in mind is that these attacks go beyond Internet Explorer and that simply switching browsers is not an adequate defense.

This is completely absurd FUD.

It's not. What they say is exactly correct: hat these attacks go beyond Internet Explorer and that simply switching browsers is not an adequate defense.
FF has flaws too. An adequate defense would be to install McAfee© VirusScan Plus, McAfee© Total Protection, McAfee© Online Backup, McAfee© SiteAdvisor Plus and McAfee© Anti-Theft File Protection.
There! *NOW* you are protected!

Re:Tear down

[shog9]

Nice! Though I suppose you could save a little bit of time and just put a bullet through your harddrive...

Re:Tear down

[KarmaMB84]

The flaw exists but the default configurations on Windows Vista and Windows 7 will prevent any damage. My understanding is that Microsoft's policy is to classify them as vulnerable because it's possible to run IE7 and IE8 in configurations where they actually are vulnerable (DEP disabled, Protect Mode OFF) even if the default configuration makes them immune to the current exploit.

Re:Tear down

[LO0G]

The MSRC also classifies them as vulnerable because it's possible (but REALLY hard) to craft an exploit that can get around DEP, ASLR, GS and Protected Mode and all the other IE/Windows security features.

The MSRC is very conservative in their vulnerability ratings even if it makes MSFT products look bad.

Everybody knows OTHERS are stupid...

[viraltus]

duh!

False sense of security

[sunderland56]

PCWorld seems to be taking the opposite stance arguing that blaming IE for attacks is a dangerous approach that could cause a false sense of security.

Well, of course they'd say that - they are running a PC/Windows/Microsoft magazine, after all.

AppleWorld, on the other hand, has been blaming hacker attacks on Microsoft Windows for many years now - and the general population seems to agree with them, even though it does lead to a false sense of security in OSX.

Re:False sense of security

[MichaelSmith]

PCWorld seems to be taking the opposite stance arguing that blaming IE for attacks is a dangerous approach that could cause a false sense of security.

Well, of course they'd say that - they are running a PC/Windows/Microsoft magazine, after all.

Well, yes, but what they're saying has some merit. I've known many a novice user that thought that because they used firefox they didn't need an antivirus program or common sense.

They told you they don't need common sense?

Importance of Competitive Choices

[reporter]

This incident underscores the importance of fighting monopolies and ensuring the availability of competitive choices. If Microsoft had succeeded in driving all other browsers out of the market in 2000, then today, we would not have any other choice and would be forced to use a browser with a dangerous security risk.

We should applaud the recent work by the European Commission in demanding that Microsoft design their European version of Windows to allow users to choose the browser that they want -- thus, allowing them to never install Internet Explorer. The European Commission has been better advocate of free-market competition than the American Federal Trade Commission.

Therein lies a bit of irony. Washington often claims that the USA is a freer free market than the European Union. Yet, the Union is the political body which hit -- hard -- Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[sznupi]

Ah, yes, because Opera wouldn't have any market share otherwise.

Never mind that it's the number one browser in Ukraine, number one alternative to IE in Russia (and look like it will be number one overall in a few months), and in my backyard that I know about (post-Soviet EU memberstates) it is usually #3 browser hovering between 5 and 10%. Heck, in quite a few of them Opera Mini (the j2me one) is ahead of Safari...

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[icebraining]

Just because some anti-competitive behavior wasn't stopped long ago, doesn't make it right.

How is distributing IE with Windows any different than the distribution of Window Media Player, which was considered anti-competitive years ago?

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[SydShamino]

Microsoft didn't driver browsers out of the market, Opera was "in the market" the entire time you're referring to.

That's the "If" in "If Microsoft had succeeded".

Netscape gave up because their business model was completely undercut by the fact that Microsoft made IE mandatory on every computer sold. Opera survived as a niche, and Mozilla was born from Netscape's ashes, both of which are signs that Microsoft didn't succeed.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[bargainsale]

No, they conquered the market by abusing their dominance of the desktop OS market to crush competition, by twisting the arm of vendors to make them ship all their computers with the MS inferior product preinstalled.

If it had really been a superior product, nobody would have been making a fuss. It wasn't.

Possibly you also believe that Windows' stranglehold on the desktop is due to the intrinsic virtues of the OS too?

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Low Ranked Craig]

In a Free market there could not be a monopoly.

In a free market there can absolutely be monopolies, and monopolies are not in and of themselves illegal.

In a free market everyone can decide to purchase services or products from the same vendor. That's not a problem. The problem come into play when the monopoly starts using their position in an uncompetitive manner, like by requiring system builders to install only your browser, and punishing them if they do otherwise. This behavior is perfectly acceptable in a fragmented market, but not in a monopolized one.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Blakey Rat]

If it had really been a superior product, nobody would have been making a fuss. It wasn't.

I'm sorry, do you *remember* Netscape 4? IE was a far superior product, on both Windows and Macintosh. (And on Macintosh it won the market fair and square, there being no "stranglehold.")

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[supremebob]

That said, if Netscape actually made a browser that was worth a damn during the reign of Internet Explorer 5 and 6, it might still be around today.

Keep in mind that Internet Explorer is STILL bundled on almost every new PC that's been released in the past ten years, yet competitors like Firefox and Chrome have taken significant market share from it. Why? Because Mozilla and Google finally put out a better product that was faster, more secure, and and cooler features.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Capsaicin]

I'm really confused...

That's because the real world comes in shades of grey. A free market cannot exist without some intervention of the state. Minimally a state has to defend against Viking raiders and to establish legal property relations.

Moreover the free market obeys the dialectic of things tending towards their own negation. That is to say the goal of participants in the free market is to eliminate the competition creating a monopoly in a market and thus to defeat the freedom of that market. Rather cruelly, this is when the state is once again required to step in move the goal posts. You've got to feel sorry for successful corporations, don't you?

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Andrew_T366]

I remember Netscape 4. In fact, I was using it semi-regularly (albeit on my Windows 3.1 computer) as late as 2003.

Although it wasn't quite as lightweight as Netscape 3 (which was undoubtedly their high-water mark), it was generally stable and ran just fine on a 486.
It had none of the security issues that Internet Explorer 4 invited by going above and beyond the definition of what a web browser should do.
If it crashed, it seldom took the whole system down with it as IE would always do.
It didn't take the entire system hostage. It left the Windows shell well enough alone. It was uninstallable, like a normal application.
Its rendering capability was no worse than IE 4's. (If it seems worse now--and frankly, most people haven't used IE 4 in years so they don't really know--that's only because IE got ahead of it in rendering capability after Netscape had its air supply cut off and was in a mad scramble to do anything other than fade away without a trace.)

It was a more robust browser than IE 4 in practically every way. And if Netscape had been able to develop the software in a more natural manner (a la version 1-3) without a monopolist breathing fire at their heels with blatantly-illegal marketing practices, I'm sure it would have been better still.

(And before you claim that IE won the Macintosh market "fair and square," remember that Microsoft threatened to discontinue Office for the Mac if Apple didn't bundle IE as the default browser on its systems.)

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Artifakt]

In the theoretical free market, everyone has perfect knowledge of the values involved. For example, the person signing a mortgage knows everything relevant to the same extent as the bank issuing it. Obviously, that fits your shades of grey model. When a state, for just one example, makes efforts to require people with inside knowledge to reveal it to the people they are negotiating with, that is actually a move towards a perfect free market. Let me repeat that for the people who think they are capitalists but are really Mercantilists or something - State involvement is a fundamental method of getting and preserving free markets, not an anti-market force.
      The theory behind antitrust law is the government has to step in when a monopoly is being abused, not merely because it exists. This can include both situations where a monopoly is damaging other businesses and, alternatively, where it is damaging the public at large.
      Microsoft's influence over the hardware market might be considered an example of damage to other businesses - either established businesses such as Gateway or AMD, or possible startups we may have never heard from. This story, on the other hand, is about a case of possible damage to the public, and has little or nothing to do with the other possible abuses.
      Many of the EU/Microsoft claims have involved damage to other businesses. They don't really prove anything about what Microsoft has done to the public one way or another - this claim has to stand or fall on its own. France's publicising the vulnerability is a move to provide more perfect knowledge, so it's arguably an effort towards a more perfect free market. In fact, it's up to the people criticising France to show how there's a flaw in the action - it's normally what a State should do, some would argue what a State is required to do, and moves things closer to a free market, unless there is a substantial falsehood in France's claim.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[icebraining]

The EU doesn't want Windows to come without a browser. It wants Windows to come with *multiple* browsers, so that you can choose one in a nice little panel.

And this is not directly to protect the Windows users - this is to protect the competition in the market, which in turn will help *all* consumers. Or do you think non-Windows users weren't hurt by the dominance of the IE, after defeating Netscape?
All the web standards had been broken and a great majority of the sites required IE to be viewed correctly, which was kind of difficult if you used IE. This is changing now because of competition.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[Artifakt]

The reason monopoly matters, is it's a precondition for success at anticompetitive or abusive conduct.
        Imagine a situation where somebody makes a threat against another person, specifically a threat to beat them up bare handed. If the person making the threat is an 87 lb., wheelchair bound person with a known heart condition, threatening a normally healthy adult who could evade the attack by simply walking away, what does the law say about the normally healthy person claiming they were so threatened they had to draw a pistol and empty it into their 'assailant'? Now, let's flip the situation - the person making the threat is a 245 lb. linebacker, he has already picked up a 2x4 with nails in it, and he is blocking the only exit. What does the law say now?
        Monopoly is somewhat like that - it's a claim that the business had the power to be able to act badly successfully, when without that power, whatever it was doing doesn't need the law to stop it, because it would have failed, or done so much damage to the company that it wouldn't have been worth it. If a company with a 5% market share tells vendors "We won't give you a discount rate unless you don't bundle our competition." the vendor laughs and walks off. At 80% or more, apparently they give in. The law doesn't need to act in the first case - a threat that has no teeth resolves itself.

Re:Importance of Competitive Choices

[JAlexoi]

In short: Free market is as much a utopia, as much as communism is a utopia.

Don't switch?

[mounthood]

"You may also have web-based applications that don't work well, or even at all, unless they are accessed with Internet Explorer. That's not going to be good for productivity. And finally, what if your replacement browser itself turns out to contain a vulnerability? Are you going to switch again?"

That's the sort of shallow, thoughtless attitude that got you stuck with IE6 in the first place.

Wait a second....

[Qubit]

France and Germany agree on something?

The IE threat must be greater than previously imagined. Or...something.

Re:Wait a second....

[Anonymous Coward]

nah, that's not that far fetched. Now if *England* and France agreed on something... Well, thats one of the signs of the apocalypse

I blame the IE 'mentality'

[brxndxn]

I remember Steve Ballmer screaming 'Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!' and that has been the IE 'menality' ever since. The mentality is "Give the developers (especially big huge companies like Microsoft, Adobe, Symantec, Google) complete control over the users' computers just by clicking 'ok' in Internet Explorer one time." That has got to be seen as a security hole. Every goddamn piece of software now wants to run as a service, check for updates, annoy the user, and prioritize itself. For example, once you install Adobe Flash, it is there.. on every web page.. despite whether the user might want to choose not to load the annoying flash for that particular web page. I am not complaining just about flash - just about the lack of options to make installed software optional. Why can't I have an option to 'right click, show flash' on all my flash animations? and for that matter.. all other software that wants to open by default without giving me an option to save?

Here's how I would make IE more secure in a general sense:

1. Program the 'stop' button as the highest priority. IE is useless if it decides it has to load an entire complicated web page (or malware site) before I can click 'stop' and cancel all of it.

2. Put options in IE to disallow resizing of IE windows by script, removing of toolbar buttons, preventing the user from resizing windows, and using 100% of system resources to process a web page.

3. Remove the ability for a 'Windows popup button' to prevent the user from stopping a script. How asinine is it that a web page can merely repeatedly pop up system messages forcing the user to click ok before allowing the user to click stop? IE screws this up royally with Java helping.

4. Put a 'cookie tracker' right inside Internet Explorer.. Allow the user to control whether a site can modify a cookie. Notify the user (at the bottom status bar - not in his fucking face) that 'a cookie was created or modified' when visiting a web page. User might get suspicious when his favorite porn site tries to modify the 'gmail' cookie.

5. Never allow web pages to stop me from right-clicking. Fuck you. It's my computer.

I'm sure there's a whole lot of other things I could say that Microsoft will continue to ignore..

Re:I blame the IE 'mentality'

[pyrbrand]

Actually, any add on can be enabled for only a specific set of pages. For instance, to restrict the use of Flash in IE8, to go Tools->Manage Add-Ons then under the Adobe published by section, double click the "Shockwave Flash Object" (I don't know why Adobe can't just call it Flash), then under the text field titled "You have approved this add-on to run on the following websites:", click the button "Remove all sites". Now you'll get a gold bar on every site that uses flash in which you can allow the site to run flash or not. Not quite as nice as Flashblock, but still pretty good.

Ekhem, Germany and France are in Europe...

[sznupi]

...you know, the place that already doesn't have browser monoculture. Therefore, your premise doesn't hold true - they don't want to shatter IE monoculture, create variation in the market. They just don't want people to use IE.

And especially in Europe, that's very much four engines, not three, with one or two places having Opera as number one browser, few other as number one alternative browser, and in many it has quite respectable usage share.

And you all laughed

[Monkeedude1212]

When I said this was all an elaborate ruse to Market Chrome.

Clearly I'm the only one here parano^H^H^H^H^H^HSensible enough to see whats plainly in front of us.

Take Microsoft vs Google. Google's brand name is made up of 50% vowels, 50% consonants, whereas Microsoft is 33-67. This is a clever method designed to make you think that Google is fairer and wishes to have an equal representation of all letters. However, this is just plain deceiptful, because "Chrome" is only 33% vowels wheras "IE" (we'll abbreviate it) is 100% vowels, thus making up for the lack of vowels in "Microsoft". There are also even spreads across such MS products as "Office" and "Live". Apple has felt the need to keep up with the proper representation of vowels by throwing in a single lowercase i in front of every one of their new products. Good on them.

So I know what you're thinking: What do vowels and consonants have to do with ACTA and Net Neutrality? Absolutely nothing! But they DO have a lot to do with the recent attacks made against Google. As you can recall, its been recently discovered that the attacks originated in China. Surprising to some people, English has not been fully adopted yet, and many Chinese citizens still speak Mandarin and that other language no one can remember. All traditional chinese languages use characters, not letters. (To those who program or are DBA's, a letter is what normal people call a char). Now, what is Mandarin missing that English has? You guessed it; VOWELS. It's clear and obvious that Google is behind all of it. What the end goal is, I'm not entirely sure, I'm still trying to connect the dots.

What's important about this article is that its happening in FRANCE. This is a bit of a PR stunt for France. You see, everyone hates Microsoft, and everyone hates France. This hurts the French industries of exporting Cheese, Wine, and arrogant behavior. So France is hoping that by declaring they hate Microsoft as well, everyone will look on them in a better light. WE MUST NOT ALLOW THIS. If people start liking the French more, Baguettes will be everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Breakfast lunch and dinner. Baguettes at home, baguettes at work, baguette soup, baguette sandwhiches. Don't get me wrong I like a baguette every now and then but if we let them get a single foothold on the breadmarket they will take it over completely. There is nothing stronger then the relentless pursuits of a French Bunmaster.

So please, everyone, I beg of you. Keep using IE8, if you already do. Not because its secure, because it isn't. Not because of Google, no matter how evil they secretly are...

But because the standard loaf shape of bread is under attack, and if we don't come to defend it, no one will.

Re:And you all laughed

[bunratty]

They'll have to pry my Freedom Bread from my cold, dead body!

Mixed Message

[Bob9113]

Don't Kill the Messenger: Blaming IE for Attacks is Dangerous

Don't obfuscate the message. Blaming IE for being susceptible to attacks is entirely valid.

So is blaming Mozilla, Chrome, Opera, Konquerer, and Safari when they are vulnerable.

It's all nice and tidy to say "The attackers are to blame." But we don't have control over them. We do have control over which software we use. And if we continually abandon less secure software for more secure alternatives, we will have a continually improving software ecosystem. That will not always mean abandoning IE (well, it may not always mean abandoning IE -- seriously, someday IE might be the most secure option -- stop laughing, it could happen, hypothetically), but it does mean always abandoning whoever fucked up most egregiously most recently. Feedback works.

This is exactly why I let my kids play with

[nedlohs]

the toys we know have been painted with paint with high amounts of lead in it.

After all, if I took those away from them I'd just be giving myself a false sense of security since it's likely there are some other toys with lead in them that I don't know about.

Same reason I smoke, sure I know smoking causes cancer but not doing it would just give me a false sense of security given there are numerous other things that also cause cancer.

Re:It'll never work...

[RobertM1968]

Wrong... the problem is in ALL versions of IE from at least 6 upwards on ALL operating systems from at least XP upwards. Microsoft themselves admitted that.

Our investigation so far has shown that Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 4 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 is not affected, and that Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, and Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 on supported editions of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2 are vulnerable.

Microsoft Advisory

Why are people still perpetuating the myth that this does not affect IE7 or IE8 when Microsoft themselves claim it does?!?!?! Just curious.

The Part I don't Get.

[jellomizer]

While Microsoft won the browser war they failed their objectives.

The point of winning the browser war was so Microsoft could change the direction of web standards, eg pushing Active X except for Java Applets. VB script vs Javascript etc. This failed miserably for Microsoft now they are putting time and effort into IE a Free OS Addon to the product and they are not getting anything really out of it. Except for this big push to make IE seem like this great browser they should just well use Firefox it is just as good if not better, we will keep IE going and as secure as possible for a while but will phase it out in about 10 years.

Staying #1 in the browser market where every version you are pushed to follow everyone elses standards is just a wast of your time and money, espectially when you have a slew of other people making good alternatives. Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc... That really want to follow the standards. Let IE fall too 20% market share, this is OK.

Re:Actually not that bad of a suggestion.

[rattaroaz]

Bottom line is that IE really has sucked all its life; and not just statistically.

Remember back in the days competing with Netscape, IE was actually good for the time. It wasn't until Microsoft held the browser monopoly that it remained stagnant, while the rest of the browsers moved ahead.

Running 2 revisions out of date?

[zullnero]

For any software, if you're running stuff that is basically 12 years out of date, you should expect your setup to be exploitable. You don't see a lot of people running MacOS 8, early revisions of Slackware, or Netscape 5.5 anymore, right? Neglecting to update IE is about the stupidest thing anyone with some regard for their personal security could put off. It's easily the most exploited piece of software in the history of...software. That's what having a near 100% dominance in the very sketchy playing field of the late 90's/early 00's Internet does for you. I'm no Microsoft fan, but anyone who thinks that code that was written 12 years ago is perfectly fine to use nowadays...switching to another browser isn't going to fix their problem. Medication and a good shrink will fix their problem. And maybe a Computer Science course or two. If you never updated the virus defs in your virus scanner...and you got a virus...switching virus scanners isn't going to fix the fact that you're too undisciplined to wait a few seconds and let your virus defs download no matter what setup you use. If people won't update from IE6, you can bet they won't update any other browser they install, either.

Sorry, but if you get exploited running IE6, I have absolutely NO pity for you. You're just plain stupid, and your stupidity most likely has caused you to infect other systems probably more than once. You're like a driver who plows down a couple margaritas before you go out driving on a Sunday afternoon.

I'm sick and tired of reading that crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Every single time EU regulates USA companies, some Americans come and say "They are just being hard on USA companies". But no. They have been very strict to other companies too (Just google about EU and Samsung, Siemens, ABB, Alstom, Saint-Gobain... The list really goes on. Go ahead, check by yourself. They have been handing out massive fines here and there for anti-competitive practices.).

It's just that the media in USA doesn't pay that much attention to EU fining european companies. In addition, european countries in general have stricter regulation on national level so antitrust investigations on smaller european corporations are done at that level.

Locks and burglars

[Exitar]

Of course if a burglar breaks in my apartment thank to a defect of my lock and steal my fornitures I blame the burglar for the theft.
But I change my lock afterward.