SYDNEY (Australia) - AUSTRALIAN, French and German internet users have been told by their respective governments to stop using the Internet Explorer (IE) program because of a security threat.
According to a report on news.com.au, Australian web users were advised to install security patches or switch browsers. In France and Germany, however, warnings have been issued against all versions of Microsoft's browser.
On Friday, the German government warned users after a malicious code - implicated in recent attacks on Google - was published online, and now Certa, a French Government agency that oversees cyber threats, has warned against using all recent versions of the web browser, reported news.com.au.
Microsoft has released a security advisory for Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8 but said it had only seen a 'very limited number of targeted attacks against a small subset of corporations'. 'The attacks that we have seen to date are only effective against Internet Explorer 6. We are not seeing any widespread attacks and thus far we are not seeing attacks focused on consumers,' the company said.
However news.com.au said Microsoft had suggested users upgrade to IE 8, despite this program reportedly remaining technically vulnerable. Windows XP users were recommended to upgrade to Service Pack 3.
Microsoft told news.com.au that it was 'still working on a permanent solution'.
