Tag Archives: Chrome

US, UK Governments Say Avoid Internet Explorer

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A number of news outlets are reporting that the US and UK governments have issued a warning advising users of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser to stop using it for now due to a major vulnerability.

There are a number of alternative web browsers available, including Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Both of them have mobile versions and the ability to synchronize bookmarks, add-ons, and other data with multiple devices.

Media are linking this to the End of Support for Windows XP but this appears to be unrelated, as Internet Explorer versions 6 through 11 are affected by this vulnerability. Windows XP supports Internet Explorer only up to version 8. This does mean, however, that any fix for the problem will not be applied to Windows XP, so it is best to use an alternate browser until XP systems can be upgraded.

No word yet on how long it will take for a fix to be released for newer versions of Windows.

Unauthorized Google Certificate Discovered

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Google has reported that Chrome detected a fraudulent digital security certificate for the *.google.com domain. This could have potentially allowed whoever possessed the certificate to impersonate Google. The problem originated with a mistake by a Turkish Certificate Authority. From the Google blog post by software engineer Adam Langley:

TURKTRUST told us that based on our information, they discovered that, in August 2011, they had mistakenly issued two intermediate CA certificates to organizations that should have instead received regular SSL certificates.

The post from Google is a bit on the technical side, but The Register has a more straightforward explanation of the situation. To protect yourself against any potential misuse of these certificates, Microsoft recommends ensuring you have all the latest updates installed; Chrome and some other browsers update automatically.