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or more so.

and so ... we are here again.

Internet Explorer 6 continues to be a surprisingly popular browser these days, even though it’s pretty obvious that it’s no longer capable of coping with today’s technologies and compete with newer browsers on the market.

And still, 4.9 percent of the desktop users across the world are still running Internet Explorer 6 right now, which makes Microsoft mission to kill the browser even more difficult than it already was.

The IE6 Countdown page, which was set up by Microsoft to allow users keep an eye on the (hopefully decreasing) market share of Internet Explorer 6 shows that the 12-year-old browser is indeed losing ground, but clearly not as fast as Redmond hoped to.

“Over 10 years ago, a browser was born. Its name was Internet Explorer 6. Now that we're in 2013, in an era of modern web standards, it's time to say goodbye,” Microsoft said in a statement released last year.

Of course, the Redmond-based software giant hopes that all users would actually stick to Internet Explorer when moving to a modern browser, pointing to Internet Explorer 11 as the most secure and fastest version of its in-house browser ever released.

IE11 is the default Windows 8.1 browser and comes in two different flavors, one for the Modern environment and another one for the desktop. The latter is also offered as an optional download to Windows 7 users in both 32- and 64-bit versions.

Internet Explorer 11 is quickly gaining ground, as statistics provided by market researcher Net Applications for the month of December 2013 show that this browser version is running on 10.42 percent of computers worldwide. If the same uptake rate is maintained, IE11 has big chances to become the world’s number one browser sometime this year, especially because more users are transitioning to Windows 8.1.

Link IE6 Countdown page http://www.modern.ie/ie6countdown#map


http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsof ... 3848.shtml

There is something wrong, if the version of browser your using is 5 versions behind!

Security company FireEye Labs has discovered a new zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer 9 and 10 that would allow an attacker to install malicious software on an unpatched computer.

According to a security research, the attack is performed with the help of a compromised website whose HTML code is modified to load a malicious webpage created by the attacker in the background.

“The attacker’s HTML/JavaScript page runs a Flash object, which orchestrates the remainder of the exploit. The exploit includes calling back to the IE 10 vulnerability trigger, which is embedded in the JavaScript,” FireEye Labs explained.

At this point, it turns out that Internet Explorer 9 and 10 with Adobe Flash up and running are the only two browsers vulnerable to attacks, with Microsoft confirming that it’s currently investigating reports and is now trying to determine how many users have fallen victims to exploits.

“Microsoft is aware of limited, targeted attacks against Internet Explorer 9 and 10,” a Microsoft spokesperson told TNW. “As our investigation continues, we recommend customers upgrade to Internet Explorer 11 for added protection.”

The easiest way to stay protected until Microsoft comes up with an official patch to address the vulnerability is to update to Internet Explorer 11, as it’s available on Windows 7 computers as an optional download.

“The vulnerability is a previously unknown use-after-free bug in Microsoft Internet Explorer 10. The vulnerability allows the attacker to modify one byte of memory at an arbitrary address,” FireEye Labs explained in a blog post.

“The exploit targets IE 10 with Adobe Flash. It aborts exploitation if the user is browsing with a different version of IE or has installed Microsoft’s Experience Mitigation Toolkit (EMET). So installing EMET or updating to IE 11 prevents this exploit from functioning.


http://news.softpedia.com/news/Zero-Day ... 6777.shtml

Thankfully most of the world is below 1% usage now - it seems to be China that are hanging onto it. Maybe there are loads of pirated copies of XP in use that have all updating disabled there?

Microsoft will officially end support for Windows XP on April 8, 2014, which means that you have less than 50 days to move from the ancient operating system to a newer release.

Redmond will stop providing security patches and updates for XP in less than two months, which means that all computers still running this OS version could remain vulnerable to attacks and exploit supposed to take advantage of found glitches.

That’s doesn’t mean that all users are ready to make a switch however as third-party stats show that Windows XP continues to be an incredibly popular OS version these days.

At this point, Windows XP is powering 29 percent of the desktop computers worldwide, enough to become the second top operating system in the world after Windows 7. Of course, Microsoft hopes all users will move to Windows 8.1, so you have only 50 days to decide your next destination.


http://news.softpedia.com/news/Only-50- ... 7170.shtml

and I bet 80% of that percentage are china computers with stolen XPs.

Companies that decide to remove administrator privileges on employee computers could mitigate as much as 92 percent of all vulnerabilities found in Microsoft software, including Windows and Internet Explorer.

This is what a new study conducted by “privilege management” software company Avecto and published by Computing today reveals, adding that admin rights could grant an attacker who successfully exploits a computer the power to install new software and change system settings.

If the employer, however, removes administrator privileges, he can block up to 96 percent of critical security flaws in Windows and 100 percent of Internet Explorer glitches, the research noted.

“It's astounding just how many vulnerabilities can be overcome by the removal of admin rights,” Paul Kenyon, co-founder and executive vice president of Avecto, said. “The dangers of admin rights have been well documented for some time, but what's more concerning is the number of enterprises we talk to that are still not fully aware of how many admin users they have.”

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Removing ... 7648.shtml