Don’t use Internet Explorer

If you are using Internet Explorer – any version then you are at risk of being hacked by a security flaw in the browser.  It’s such a serious vulnerability that the US Department of Homeland Security has advised people to stop using Internet Explorer, at least until a fix is released.  It’s believed that the vulnerability is so severe that it could result in the total compromise of your computer.  This means simply that the hackers can have complete control of your computer and you’ll never know.  At this moment there is no known fix.

Microsoft have said that they plan to fix versions 9 – 11 of the browser but they haven’t said anything about 6,7 or 8.!

What’s the risk?

Depending on who you ask this could affect up to 50% of all people surfing the Internet, including government departments who hold information on you.  And it gets worse.  A large portion of the world’s computers use Windows XP as their operating system (the current Windows version is version 8).  Windows XP is no longer supported so it seems unlikely that a fix will be provided for any computer running that version of windows.  This is very serious if your equipment uses XP as many medical systems do.  The system is vulnerable to attack which means eye testing equipment, MRI scanners, etc.

Information about the attacks are sparse.  In these situations normally as little information is released as possible.  They don’t want to help new hackers find the way in.  However what has been said is the attack is sophisticated and it seems to be attacking defense and financial sectors

So what do you do?

Well if you’re not using Windows XP the plan should be stop using Internet Explorer and use Chrome of Firefox.  If you want to go back to Internet Explorer you should wait for Microsoft to release a fix.  If you’ve equipment that has XP then you should get it upgraded to an up to date operating system.  If you can’t do that then you should not use it on a network connected to the Internet.  As Always if you’d like some free advice give us a call.