Following the German governments advice that individuals switch their browser from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) to an alternative, Certa, France’s leading cyber threat agency, has advised French citizens to make similar changes. The move comes after flaws in IE were admitted by Microsoft after they were exploited to make an attack upon Google.
In a bid to stop consumer’s switching, head of security and privacy at Microsoft, Cliff Evans, said that risks were minimal and only those using IE6 and then visiting a malicious website were likely to see threats. Explaining that “the risk is minimal,” Mr Evans added that IE8 proved to be the “most secure browser on the market.” However, whilst he explained that steps such as heightening security levels on PC’s and upgrading IE could prevent threats, researchers in security warned that if a machine was attached, a ‘trojan horse’ could theoretically take hold of a machine, leaking sensitive and personal information, whilst possibly using PCs for illegal operations.
As Certa issued a statement saying “Pending a patch from the publisher, Certa recommends using an alternative browser,” industry expert Graham Cluley said this whilst switching browsers would stop this specific incident, “all browsers have security flaws.” He added that other problems could also crop up by switching, saying “Some web-based applications may not work at all if you’re not using Internet Explorer.”
Whilst the next estimated patch for IE is expected on February 9th, Microsoft are said to be working on a fix for this flaw, which will be released sooner if fixes could be developed quickly.
