I am sure that most of you know that there has been a dangerous security flaw discovered in all the recent versions (starting at 6.0) in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer that can surrender control of your computer entirely to a hacker. Though potentially not the only Windows operating system at risk, this is most detrimental to Windows XP users. Though security issues with browsers that have to be patched are hardly an unusual occurrence, this flaw is so serious that the Department Of Homeland Security has actually taken the unprecedented (as far as I am aware) step to warn users not to use Internet Explorer until your browser has been patched. Fortunately Microsoft released a patch this morning, and have even included a patch for Windows XP users despite having recently ended support for the XP operating system. I won’t speculate here why the Department Of Homeland Security is getting involved or if they influenced Microsoft’s change in plans to release a patch for XP, but just the fact that the Department Of Homeland Security is involved at all means you should pay close attention to this issue.

If you have automatic updates turned on, you don’t have to do anything, your system will update automatically; however, if you do manual updates do not wait, you need to apply this patch immediately. If you are not able to do it yourself, it would be best to use another browser in the meantime. Fortunately, there are many great browsers out there that are easy to install and use. I have used Firefox for many years, and it is a great improvement over Internet Explorer. As far as surfing LongLocks goes, you have no worries there as the site is not truly optimized for browsing in Explorer and will render better in any other browser anyway.

Be safe out there!

Filed under: Angst