Microsoft Security Advisory Reveals A Major Vulnerability of Internet Explorer
The web browsers market is dominated by the Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser, given the number of users across the world wide. The Microsoft Security Advisory describes a new major security flaw that was discovered in Internet Explorer web browser: a certain vulnerability of the browser will allow to an attacker to gain the control of users computers through remote code execution.
In this way, the attacker could obtain the same system access rights as the local user and as a consequence, the users having administrative rights could be affected on multiple levels, as compared with the accounts of the users with limited rights.
The vulnerability is present in case of Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 7, 5.01 Service Pack 4, 6 Service Pack 1, 6, and Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 on almost all comonly used Windows versions (details are available on Microsoft Official Website). It is defined as “as an invalid pointer reference in the data binding function of Internet Explorer”, present by default (if data binding is disabled, this security issue will no longer exist).
There are available several methods to minimize the presence of this security issue. For example, in case of Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 7 and 8 Beta 2, the Protected Mode available in Windows Vista will block automatic downloads or the starting of a certain application without the user agreement by a strict control over system files and settings.
Traditional protection methods for Windows operating system suggest to the users to enable a firewall, to perform the required security updates and install an anti-virus software. As an alternative, the changing of Internet Explorer with another popular web browser like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome or Lunascape could also reduce the chances of an attacker to perform remote code execution in order to control the user computer.
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