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France and Germany warn against using Internet Explorer

19 January 2010 12:29 (UTC +04:00)

BakÄ±. Aynur VÉ™liyeva - APA-Economics. The French and German governments have recommended computer users in their countries to avoid using Internet Explorer until Microsoft patches a vulnerability that security vendor McAfee said last week was at least partly responsible for the cyber-attack on Google last week, Sfgate reported.

Both governments cautioned users against using IE 6, 7 or 8 over the weekend, even though Microsoft said last week in a statement acknowledging the vulnerability that "to date, Microsoft has not seen widespread customer impact, rather only targeted and limited attacks exploiting IE 6."

Security researchers first blamed a recently patched Adobe PDF hole for the attack on Google, but McAfee said late last week that a previously undiscovered vulnerability in IE was used to target specific individuals within Google.

Some observers are concerned that criminals will not miss the opportunity to go after consumers through this vulnerability now that it’s out in the open.

However, others believe demonizing IE is a narrow-minded approach to a serious security issue. Computerworld’s Tony Bradley notes that the IE vulnerability is only one of what could be several vectors that enabled the attack on Google.