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US and UK Governments Advise Avoiding Internet Explorer Until Bug Fixed
martiniturbide (1203660) writes "Reuters is reporting that 'The U.S. and UK governments on Monday advised computer users to consider using alternatives to Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer browser until the company fixes a security flaw that hackers used to launch attacks.' The article states that 'The Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team said in an advisory released on Monday that the vulnerability in versions 6 to 11 of Internet Explorer could lead to "the complete compromise" of an affected system.'"
How are people going to download Firefox?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Just in time for XP to go out of support for most people, now you get this 'well publicized' bug that wont get patched, in effect. I expect only the latest version of IE to be patched, which will NOT run on XP even if you wanted to.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Numerous NYS web pages whos use is MANDATED for local government REQUIRES IE 8. For the Win7 machines (dictated by HIPPA as securable) we have to disable ActiveX security, add it to trusted sites, AND fire up the developer tools to get it into IE 7 compatability. The page I am specifically thinking of is the Department of Health... you know where all your medical records are.
Security is poorly spun illusion at this point. If the feds wanted the Internet to be secure then they should have reigned in the spooks in the beginning.
Don't worry, I work in a government agency, IE8 is the only authorized browser (with java of course), and if you gained access to that computer you would have plenty of access to sensitive (but not classified) stuff.