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Yet another Internet Explorer security hole being exploited by intruders bent on swiping personal information from unwitting Internet users. The SANS Institute Internet Storm Center issued an alert this week about pop-up ads designed to download a program that keeps track any time a PC user clicks to the log-in page of 50 financial institutions worldwide.
The program captures log-in information and sends it to another Web site, before the bank can encrypt the data. In a similar attack discovered last week, intruders sprinkled invisible coding that accomplished much the same thing on Microsoft Web servers that serve up hundreds of high-traffic commercial Web sites. Both attacks appear to exploit security holes in Internet Explorer for which Microsoft has not yet issued a patch.
Internet Explorer's track record is such that the software just cannot be trusted right now. Earlier this week I told you that I had stopped using Internet Explorer over 18 months ago. With this new security threat I am now switching ALL 50 of the computers in my office to Firefox and I would encourage you to do the same. It is free and gives you a pop-up blocker and a Google Search Box. What more could you want except to know that you won't be susceptible to the ever increasing security problems from Microsoft.
You can download the free Firefox browser from their website.
USA Today July 2, 2004
Wired July 2, 2004