Renewed calls for alternative browsers
It's been a bad week for many users of Microsoft Corp.'s nearly ubiquitous Internet Explorer browser.
A pair of virus attacks exploiting its vulnerabilities had led security experts to recommend that Web surfers consider such alternatives as Mozilla and Opera.
Until Microsoft made a software update available Friday, continuing to use Internet Explorer was "like playing the lottery," said Johannes B. Ullrich, chief technology officer of the nonprofit SANS Internet Security Center.
The respected research center was among security groups recommending other browsers as long as a key vulnerability in IE remained unfixed, leaving it capable of running malicious code that's been hidden at a number of popular Web sites.
It took a week for Microsoft to issue the update, which does not fix the flaw entirely but disables a hacker's ability to deliver malicious code with it. Ullrich said the update appeared to eliminate any immediate need to switch browsers, which can cause problems of its own.
The flaw had allowed a computer virus to spread through a new technique that converted popular Web sites into virus transmitters. That infection was designed to steal valuable information as Web users typed it into their computers -- passwords and the like.
