Submitted by The German government has warned web users to find an alternative browser to Internet Explorer to protect security. The warning from the Federal Office for Information Security comes after Microsoft admitted IE was the weak link in recent attacks on Google’s systems. Microsoft rejected the warning, saying that the risk to users was low and that the browsers’ increased security setting would prevent any serious risk.
The French government has also made a similar recommendation:
http://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2010/01/17/la-france-et-…
Exploit code is now available:
http://www.darkreading.com/vulnerability_management/security/attack…
Google: “We have a better browser than Microsoft, not that our employees are using it.” LOL!
I am sure that Google are capitalising on this situation a little bit.
And the F/OSS movement too, enjoy!
at this pace, in 3 years, we will see similar recommendation about dropping Windows (XP or all, who know). The more fragmented the market will be, the better interoperability will get, even if this statement look ridiculous.
I bet they realized the fact that there are plenty of exploits packs there targeting IE only. These basically do drive by download so the loser won’t notice a thing except he got p0wned.
IE is loser shit but still Eu is a joke with that trial that Microsoft removes it from the winsack c0re. You see with the kind of money Microsoft has they can ROFL on EU laws for years as they do this since what ~2003 when the whole thing started to drop that junk out of their OS?
I’m not impressed from google chrome either, FF rulez. Keep pushing throwing out IE from winsuck tho cause I live to see the day when that actually happens.
Edited 2010-01-18 03:51 UTC
“winsack”, “winsuck”, “p0wn”, “loser sh*t”, “rulez” and a generally childish attitude on top of it all… Do I even need to say more?
Why? Believe it or not, most of the F/OSS movement couldn’t care less about Microsoft or its products.
And there is generally something very obnoxious to seek pleasure from the failures of others.
Naturally the German Government, and others, suddenly realized what we all know for years.
The funny part is Microsoft “rejected the warning” that is directed to all public offices, in the fastest way to reach them.
It would be even funnier to see Microsoft to sue the German government for disclosing an internal note in a public way and thus creating an image loss to Microsoft (accountable) even if under conditions created by Microsoft”.
Isn’t that the basis of many (heavy contenders) “law” suits?
We also know the answer is both yes, no and maybe.
But is nonetheless funny how the even Governments notes are rejected just because they WILL be listened by the average user.
Delicious!
Edited 2010-01-18 02:09 UTC
I wonder, whether Microsoft if seriously considering exiting German market altogether, due to the unprecedented government interference with their business…
Why would Microsoft do Germany such a big favour?
Edited 2010-01-18 10:41 UTC
so they could concentrate all their efforts here in the UK as the NuLab gov is so in love with Microsoft.
Blair was in love with Gates and Broone seems to think Balmer can do no wrong.
It is not the first time that BSI (“german government”) recommends not to use Internet Explorer.
They did it several times before.
The new thing is that now IE 7 and 8 are out and they are still insecure.
No. Governments don’t realize things. They don’t realize anything. That’s not their nature. 🙂
Furthermore, not using insecure and outdated PC software products will make it very hard for the upcoming “Bundestrojaner” (translated: “Federal Trojan”) to become available on all PCs in the FRG so the government can easily spy on the people. 🙂
This is just a friendly advice. Just imagine if all the administrative offices on federal, state, community and municipal level would stop using “Internet Explorer”. All their fine and expensively taylored applications would stop working! 🙂
Listen: Yes. Believe: No. 🙂
Is the original official recommendation available online?
https://www.bsi.bund.de/cln_183/ContentBSI/presse/Pressemitteilungen…
(you need to know german)
If you use a web browser released in 2001, you get what you bargained for.
Same goes to any other browser. To balance the sheets: Firefox 1.1 was released in 2005!
EDIT: okay, my apologies, after some digging I realized that other versions were affected too (though Metasploit only released an exploit for IE6).
Good advice from the the Register interview too:
Edited 2010-01-18 09:00 UTC
Can anyone show me a secure web browser?
One that doesn’t regularly have security related bugs reported for it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_(web_browser) has very little.
In the grand scheme of things most people are gonna keep right on using IE.
As soon as IE respcts w3 standards I will stop putting my users to FF. Fact is that IE is a horror-trip for webdesigners, you need loads of workarounds to make it look similar to a site written for w3-standards.
If a country like China are behind the hacking of Google, do you think changing your web browser will make you safe ?
I think they should hire more intelligent people into German Government.