British government ignores MS Internet Explorer fears [Updated x2]
France and Germany have already told their citizens to avoid Microsoft’s Internet Explorer because of a critical hole in the browser, so what does the British government think? The problem emerged late last week and both governments reacted with a simple warning – use another browser until this is fixed.
Three days later and still no response from the British government. We’re still waiting to hear back from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
The weakness is in older versions of Internet Explorer like 6 and 7 which were running Windows XP SP3. The code has now been released making it fairly simple for an attacker to exploit the hole. Microsoft confirmed that the hole was used in the attacks against Google and 33 other companies believed to come from China. At its most extreme it would let an attacker run code on your machine.
If you don’t want to ditch IE altogether then at least running it in safe mode, with ActiveX and JavaScript turned off, will reduce the dangers.
Internet Explorer is the default browser on government computers. It would be a big job for them to all be changed overnight, but surely the government could offer some advice on keeping the rest of us safe?
The gaping hole might seem like bad news for Microsoft, but most IE users will probably remain unaware of the problem. If enough of them do notice then it might provide a bit of a boost for Firefox and Google’s Chrome – currently being heavily advertised in the UK. Microsoft is still working on plugging the hole which, so far at least, has been used to target corporations rather than individuals
UPDATE (19-Jan):
Microsoft’s Head of Security and Privacy in the UK, Cliff Evans, is now saying that people who jump ship from Internet Explorer after the recent spate of bad headlines risk ending up on a less secure browser.
With France and Germany both advising a move away from Internet Explorer, things are far from rosy for Microsoft’s browser, and although the vulnerability has only been used against IE6, the company has not ruled out that something similar could be used against the later versions. With Microsoft not prepared to give details of how soon a fix will be released, and advising people to leave the appalling IE6 and its successor for the latest version – IE8 – Microsoft’s UK security chief insists that a non-Microsoft browser is the worse option.
The whole Google IE flaw issue is clearly a PR disaster for Microsoft, with Evans conceding that this particular problem is not likely to afflict IE’s rivals. Asked when a fix would be ready, Evans states that the rollout might or might not be before the normal upgrade cycle, but has no further details. In the meantime, the company will be hoping that the knee-jerk reaction of France and Germany is not mirrored elsewhere.
UPDATE no.2 (27-Jan):
Lord Avebury has since tabled a parliamentary question regarding the security of Internet Explorer and whether the UK government would reconsider its use. He got an answer from the UK Home Office that’s unlikely to please most readers. The UK government contends that ‘there is no evidence that moving from the latest fully patched versions of Internet Explorer to other browsers will make users more secure.
Tags: Government, Internet Explorer, microsoft, security
January 30th, 2010 at 15:52
[...] Google’s revelations, the French and German governments advised their citizens to switch to a different browser until the hole had been closed. Microsoft reacted by quickly [...]