Microsoft confesses Internet Explorer infected, PCs vulnerable to hackers
Microsoft Corp warned Monday that a newly discovered bug in its Internet Explorer web browser makes PCs vulnerable to attack by hackers and urged customers to download a piece of security software to mitigate the risk of infection.
photo/ELeschev
Hundreds of millions of IE browser users may be affected by the security flaw and Microsoft says hackers can exploit this bug to infect PC and even take control of the victim’s computer.
Customers were advised to install security software as an interim measure, buying it time to fix the bug and release a new, more secure version of Internet Explorer. The company did not say how long that will take, but several security researchers said they expect the update within a week.
The free security tool, which is known as the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit, or EMET, is available through an advisory on Microsoft’s website: blogs.technet.com/b/msrc/
The EMET software must be downloaded, installed and then manually configured to protect computers from the newly discovered threat, according to the posting from Microsoft.
Some security experts said it would be too cumbersome for many PC users to implement the measures suggested by Microsoft. Instead they advised Windows users to temporarily switch from Internet Explorer to rival browsers such as Google Inc’s Chrome, Mozilla’s Firefox or Opera Software ASA’s Opera.
“For consumers it might be easier to simply click on Chrome,” said Dave Marcus, director of advanced research and threat intelligence with Intel Corp’s McAfee security division.
