I’ve always known that Internet Explorer was an insecure mess, but this latest attacks on Google and dozens of other companies has really opened my eyes to just how bad it really is. The latest zero-day flaw exists not just in bad old IE 6, but in every modern version of IE.
To be exact, according to Microsoft, the same security hole is in IE6, IE7 and IE8 on Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008, Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 are vulnerable to attack. In other words, if you’re running any remotely current version of IE or Windows, you can be hacked. Great. Just great. How anyone on the planet can actually believe Microsoft when, with every new release of either their browser or operating system they claim that they’re more secure, is beyond me.
Windows has been, is now, and always will be insecure . It’s baked into its single-user, stand-alone computer design that was never designed to handle a networked universe with attackers always one network connection away.