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The most current version of Internet Explorer is gaining rave reviews for its enhanced security settings for malware but Microsoft warns that versions 6, 7 and 8 could allow hackers to take remote control of a computer.
Although Dave Forstrom, Director of Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing group admits that there are no reports of this happening, they know the possibility exists. They know that the code can hide on a web page as malicious code, tracking the computer’s memory as it accesses Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which controls the way a page is presented. Microsoft issued updates to the older version of Internet Explorer but they have tested and found them ineffective. Microsoft recommends using a free toolkit that they offer to fix the issues.
For Windows Visa and Windows 7 users there is an extra layer of protection to limit the possibility of the problem but experts say they are still vulnerable.
Researchers have been testing for malware threats on various browsers and found that Internet Explorer 9 beta to be excellent in catching nearly 100% of the live threats. Highly recommended in SmartScreen URL filtering and the new service that comes with it. Both have been tested and proven for high performance against malware.
Other browsers were found to only capture a fraction of the threats compared to IE9. Mozilla Firefox 3.6 captured only 19 %, Apple Safari only 11%, Google Chrome 6 only 3 percent. And Opera 10 as the worst by capturing no threats at all. The test involved checking URLs run the first time and then adding new URLs each day and how they responded for malware.
The test proved that these browsers are going to great length to compete with each other by offering consumers the added protection but there is also the concern that consumers will not make browser choices based on this added security.
