France and Germany warn citizens to avoid using Internet Explorer
Monday, January 18, 2010
The governments of both France and Germany have issued official warnings to their citizenry, saying that, until Microsoft releases a patch for the widely-used Internet Explorer web browser, it is a threat to network security and should not be used.
Tech news website eWeek reports that the exploit that has caused such widespread concern in Europe is the same one that was used to attack a number of corporate systems in the U.S., including Google, which has since caused that company to announce that it would cease cooperation with the Chinese government. Concerns have been raised about the Chinese government's possible involvement in the attacks.
The French and German governments both advised their citizens to switch to alternative web browsers, while eWeek reports that Microsoft has said the vulnerability can be avoided with a switch to Internet Explorer 8, thought to be immune to the exploit.
The French information agency CERTA said in a statement that it strongly advised users to disable dynamic code and to browse the internet with limited user rights active on the machine.
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