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Researchers Discover 673 Million Browser Users at High Risk of Attack

Posted 07/02/08 at 11:42:33 AM  by Paul Lilly

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You wouldn't take a knife to a gun fight, and nor should you do battle with internet baddies using an unsecured browser. Yet despite what should seem obvious, a group of researchers found that surfers are doing just that, and hackers couldn't be happier about it. During the study, the authors discovered a whopping 45 percent of users (roughly 637 million surfers) hopping online not using the most secure web browser version available, making them "an easy target for drive-by download attacks as they are potentially vulnerable to known exploits." And that data doesn't even include potentially vulnerable plug-ins.

But are users the ones to blame for putting themselves at risk? Ultimately yes, however the researchers made comparisons to the food industry arguing that browsers should display an expiration date, such as "145 days expired, 3 updates missed." Nom nom nom.

COMMENTS:2
TAGS: windows, Software, firefox, browser, hacker, IE, Attack
COMMENTS
avatara browser with low self esteem?

Submitted by option explicit on Thu, 07/03/2008 - 7:06pm

"You wouldn't take a knife to a gun fight, and nor should you do battle with internet baddies using an insecure browser."         i think you may have meant unsecure as in not having security, not as in not having self esteem. lol

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avatarI use I.E. 6.x and I'll tell you why..

Submitted by DRAGONWEEZEL on Wed, 07/02/2008 - 9:42am

It's quite simple actually, my company enforces it.  I have to use I.E. 6.x.  I use 7 @ home, but I am not happy about it.  Neither firefox nor 7 give me what I had in 6.  (the abililty to move the links bar to the bottom, and launch *.exe from said links bar.)

If some MaximumPC god of knowledge 1. knows what I am talking about, and 2. Knows how I can get that functionality back, I'd donate a beer or two for such knowledge.

THERE ARE ONLY 11 TYPES OF PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD. Those that think binary jokes are funny, those that don't, and those that don't know binary

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