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I’m really getting to like some of the new tools coming out by Microsoft. I mean, you have to admit that they certainly can leverage their size and come out with a decent product every once in a while.
However, there is this streak in me that relishes using Mozilla Firefox just to get at Microsoft. There’s something about the little guy. Especially when the little guy is more extensible, more advanced, and there’s this…
The list of serious unpatched vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser keeps getting longer and longer.
Less than a week after researcher Michal Zalewski went public with a new zero-day vulnerability that could be used in code execution attacks, the software maker has acknowledged yet another flaw affecting fully patched Windows systems.
The new IE flaw was discovered by Secunia researcher Andreas Sandblad during code analysis into the Zalewski warning.
In fact, Secunia initially reported its findings to Microsoft as a “successful exploit” of that bug, but according to Microsoft’s internal investigations, Secunia actually found a new problem.
“This is potentially a new, privately reported, exploitable vulnerability,” a Microsoft spokesperson told eWEEK.
Secunia has since updated its advisory with a note that its discovery is a “variant” of the bug reported by Zalewski.
The flaw is due to a memory corruption error when processing a specially crafted HTML script that contains malformed “object” tags, and could be exploited by attackers to remotely take complete control of an affected system by convincing a user to visit a specially crafted Web page.
“[We have] confirmed code execution on a fully patched system with Internet Explorer 6.0 and Microsoft XP SP2. Other versions may also be affected. Details about this variant will not be publicly disclosed at present, but have been sent to
Microsoft, who is currently working on a patch,” the company aid.
Should Firefox become more popular than IE it will be subject to great amounts of attack and exploit. Those who wish to exploit want to attack the big guy. They want to affect as many users as possible.
According to Wikipedia, IE still holds about 85% market share. Now… imagine yourself a hacker, phisher, spoofer, attacker, exploit extraordinairre: who would you target?
I love Firefox. Did you know though, it has the potential to be a huge resource hog? Virtually nobody keeps the out-of-the-box firefox software intact, we all add a plethora of skins, add-on’s and plugins. You have to be extra careful what you add due to the open source nature.
I tell you what – IE 7 looks slick! So does Opera 9 for that matter.
I agree that Firefox’s share of attacks is low partly because of how small it was. This page was rendering fine in Firefox and I couldn’t get it accepted at BlogExplosion originally because it did not support IE 6. But if you look at some blogs about it, even the original developers say that IE 6 is ancient. IE 7 hasn’t done much but copy other people’s innovation. I’m interested in seeing FF 2 and then doing a comparison.
You ought to start a thread regarding favourite Firefox Extensions. It would be fun to see what everyone has!
You should be able to grab beta 1 here. I didn’t find it to be that different from 1.5 . Surprising considering it’s a whole new version.
Since I do run those resource hogging extensions, I’ve been waiting for some of them to catch up before making a plunge. I am curious about it, and may grab it for eval some time soon.
Looks like there are more behind the scenes changes than splashy ones.
There’s now a page on the site for Firefox Extensions– you can see the one’s I’m running. If I get some more time I’ll finish the links.
You’re missing Firebug, essential for AJAX development. Not to mention User Agent switcher ;-), essential for fooling those websites that state you have to have IE to view 😉 (Like my bank, which Firefox runs great, even though its “blocked”).
User Agent Switcher is also tons of fun for websites like this that put what agent people are using next to their name 😉
Look ma, another webbrowser 😉
You’re just too cool for words, DLOGAN 🙂
ROFL… looks like DLOGAN has found a perfect fit… theology, news, politics AND techie babble! ROFL….
Mrs. Meg Logan
I found another great Firefox extension today ;-). IE Tab https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1419/ It allows you to open Internet Exlorer as a Tab in firefox. Its great for testing cross-browser compatibility on websites. Not to mention you can configure it to always be used for certain websites, e.g. Those that require IE (such as Windows updates).
Also ran into this http://www.g2zero.com/2006/09/examining_defects_in_the_firef.html , apparently Firefox has 71 vulnerabilities right now ;-).
Almost forgot about one of my favorite extensions ;-). BugMeNot http://roachfiend.com/archives/2005/02/07/bugmenot/ . You know all those annoying free websites that require you to register to read an article or download something? Well, bugmenot.com keeps a database of usernames and passwords. The firefox extension adds the ability to right-click on any of these sign-in pages, and the credentials are filled in for you. That way you don’t have to register for another free account 😉
I thought I listed IE tab? I tried bugmenot, but wasn’t sure if I ethically agreed with it.
MinTheGap – You should add a post to talk about WordPress plugins, themes and the like. I’d be interested to know what plugin’s you have running doing what things ;-).
Now, if I revealed the tricks of the trade, wouldn’t hackers know how to bring my site down? In actuality, if you looked on the left hand sidebar you’d see that my delicious bookmarks are wordpress plugins. 🙂