List of unpatched vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer.
Each and every time your surf the internet, your computer will be exposed to danger. Spyware, malware, virus are everywhere around the internet. Without proper attention, you’ll be easily fall into trap of these parasites.
So, how to guard your computer when you’re online? One simple advice; guard any application that connects to the internet. The one that you use most is - your browser, of course.
Years ago, Internet Explorer could be a relevant browser for you. However, as more threats rise these days, this browser is being exploited by lots of malware, due to flaws in the security architecture of Internet Explorer. Just by surfing certain websites, using IE, is enough to get infected with spyware.
So far, these are some flaws reported in IE browser, that can be exploited by malware:
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Malware can display a fake URL in the address bar or to bypass certain security restrictions.
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Malicious websites exploits the weakness in IE, making it displays content from trusted sites. This will trick users.
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Irresponsible parties can exploit this browser to conduct spoofing attacks due to an unintended result of the IDN (International Domain Name) implementation in the HTTP Basic Authentication dialog.
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Malicious website can display a fake URL in the address bar or to bypass certain security restrictions.
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Can be exploited by malicious people to conduct cross-site scripting attacks. The vulnerability exist because pages that don’t specify a charset inherit the charset of the parent page.
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Malware can spoof the pop-up address bar. When that pop-up appears, you might see different page, with trusted URL. For example, in that pop-up, you might see a website about mp3 download, but the URL is google.com.
Example of spoof URL in pop-up. The URL shows microsoft.com, but the content is not from microsoft itself.
So, how to counter all spyware threat these days? Consider using a better and safer browser such as Firefox or Opera. Especially Firefox. It has lots of add-ons that can block any script, scan any websites, scan any downloads, online scan and more.