{"id":7893,"date":"2014-07-29T07:24:26","date_gmt":"2014-07-29T11:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=7893"},"modified":"2014-07-29T07:24:26","modified_gmt":"2014-07-29T11:24:26","slug":"internet-explorer-the-most-vulnerable-web-browser-of-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/internet-explorer-the-most-vulnerable-web-browser-of-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Internet Explorer: The most vulnerable web browser of 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<header style=\"color: #302c22;\">\n<blockquote>\n<h1 class=\"entry-title\" style=\"font-style: inherit;\">IE was the most vulnerable web browser in the first half of 2014<\/h1>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/header>\n<section style=\"color: #302c22;\">\n<div class=\"entry-content\" style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">\n<div style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">\n<div style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-large\" style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\" src=\"https:\/\/secure-assets.readability.com\/aac8dfb768dfbbe5a8a43cea15edd75e6cb60fc1\/687474703a2f2f7777772e6e656f77696e2e6e65742f696d616765732f75706c6f616465642f73637265656e5f73686f745f323031342d30362d31305f61745f342e32362e32335f706d5f73746f72792e6a7067\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">The browser market is a fiercely competitive arena dominated by\u00a0three big players: Microsoft, Google and Mozilla. Yes, there are other browsers out there\u00a0like Safari and Opera, but for the most part, Internet Explorer,\u00a0Chrome and Firefox are the household names that most consumers know.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">While the browsers are free, there is a lot of money on the line too. Why? Well, when a user installs a browser, the default search engine on that browser is the path to revenue for these companies. For example, Firefox sells the rights to Google to make it the default search\u00a0<a style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; color: #990000;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.neowin.net\/news\/google-to-pay-300-million-a-year-for-firefox-search-rights\">browser for around $300 million a year<\/a>. The reason Google does this is that it will earn all of that back, and likely a lot more, as Firefox users search through Google, allowing the company\u00a0to share its advertisements with a wider audience.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">According to a new security report out by Bromium, Internet Explorer was the most vulnerable web browser in the first half of 2014. The firm states that IE was the most patched and most exploited product\u00a0in the first half of 2014, surpassing Java and Flash.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-large\" style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\" src=\"https:\/\/secure-assets.readability.com\/cbc277ba21c45007ed8159d48a3054594fca8a70\/687474703a2f2f7374617469632e6e656f772e696e2f696d616765732f75706c6f616465642f73637265656e5f73686f745f323031342d30372d32365f61745f382e34362e34325f616d5f73746f72792e6a7067\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">The chart above shows the trending of vulnerabilities;\u00a0the blue bars represents vulnerabilities in 2013 and those in red are for 2014. As you can see, Internet Explorer&#8217;s vulnerabilities increased in 2014, when compared to 2013, and the number is quite high compared to the other products that were reviewed. More importantly, the blue bars are for all vulnerabilities in the whole of 2013, so this means that\u00a0<em style=\"font-weight: inherit;\">in the first half<\/em>\u00a0of 2014, there have been more reported vulnerabilities in IE than during the entire previous year.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">The report focused on highly\u00a0used consumer products,\u00a0which explains why there are non-browser applications in the report. It is worth pointing out that Office remains a secure application, which will likely appease the enterprise who uses this product heavily.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">Why is Internet Explorer on the top of the list? The answer is likely attributed to the fact that IE still holds a\u00a0<a style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; color: #990000;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.neowin.net\/news\/net-applications-chrome-now-ahead-of-firefox-in-web-browser-market-share\">significant chunk of the browser market\u00a0share<\/a>\u00a0and that the legacy versions of Internet Explorer, such as IE6, are still prevalent enough on the remaining\u00a0<a style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; color: #990000;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.neowin.net\/news\/end-of-life-microsoft-finally-terminates-support-for-windows-xp\">unpatched\u00a0Windows XP machines<\/a>, that targeting them is a lucrative opportunity.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">No matter the product that you use to browse the web, common sense is still the best security mechanism. If a website asks you to install a new add-on or download a file, unless you specifically clicked a link to download an application, leave that webpage and do not install the files.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.neowin.net\/news\/ie-was-the-most-vulnerable-web-browser-in-the-first-half-of-2014\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Via Neowin<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>IE was the most vulnerable web browser in the first half of 2014 The browser market is a fiercely competitive arena dominated by\u00a0three big players: Microsoft, Google and Mozilla. Yes, there are other browsers out there\u00a0like Safari and Opera, but for the most part, Internet Explorer,\u00a0Chrome and Firefox are the household names that most consumers know. While the\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/internet-explorer-the-most-vulnerable-web-browser-of-2014\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7893"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7893"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7894,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7893\/revisions\/7894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}