IE 'unsafe' for 284 days last year

by admin January 6, 2007 at 2:09 pm

Nine months gestation for 0-day exploits

Using IE6 was “unsafe” 284 days last year even for users who patched their systems as soon as Microsoft released fixes. An analysis by the Washington Post’s Stuart Krebs revealed that exploit code for critical unpatched flaws in IE6 was available for three-quarters of the time last year.

Even worse, for at least 98 days last year no patches were available for flaws that were been actively exploited by hackers to steal personal data. Firefox users, by comparison, were exposed to critical, unpatched flaws that were actively exploited for just nine days last year. This single period of exposure compares to multiple overlapping periods of vulnerability faced by IE6 users.

Read more: The Register