Germany and France ask their citizens to be cautious about Internet Explorer

On Friday, The German Federal Office for Information (BSI) Security warned computer users against using Internet Explorer version 6, 7 and 8 because of the attacks by hackers on Google server. They encourage people to switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox or Google Chrome.
However, Cliff Evans, head of security and privacy in Microsoft, doesn’t think the advice to change browser is very helpful. If Internet Explorer has this vulnerability, other browsers may have plenty of other issues. He claims that Internet Explorer 8 has so far the best security against phishing and malware comparing to the browsers of other software.
Cliff Evans also says that the code involved in attacks on Google is only dangerous to Internet Explorer 6, but not the latest versions of it. According to him, even using Internet Explorer 6, the risk is minimal. It means that the user can only get infected if he visits some compromised website. Mr Evan simply advices people to upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 which he calls the most secure browser on the market.
Security researches offer to upgrade any browser computer users have to the latest version in order to be as safe as possible. The hackers can change the code and target other versions of the browser very soon.
It seems like the announcement of Microsoft didn’t affect France much. French government decided to join Germany on this issue by warning its citizens that all versions of Internet Explorer were affected by security flaw. They strongly recommend choosing another browser in order to protect security.
Microsoft will probably have lots of work to do in order to keep Internet Explorer‘s reputation as a trustful browser. At the moment Microsoft is working on a patch to solve the problem. According to the plan, it should be ready on 9 February.

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