Internet Explorer
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The latest version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser contains a bug that can enable serious security attacks against websites that are otherwise safe. The flaw in IE 8 can be exploited to introduce XSS, or cross-site scripting, errors on webpages that are otherwise safe, according to two Register sources, who discussed the bug on the condition they not be identified. Microsoft was notified of the vulnerability a few months ago, they said.
Ironically, the flaw resides in a protection added by Microsoft developers to IE 8 that's designed to prevent XSS attacks against sites. The feature works by rewriting vulnerable pages using a technique known as output encoding so that harmful characters and values are replaced with safer ones. A Google spokesman confirmed there is a "significant flaw" in the IE 8 feature but declined to provide specifics.
It's not clear how the protections can cause XSS vulnerabilities in websites that are otherwise safe. Michael Coates - a senior application security engineer at Aspect Security who has closely studied the feature but was unaware of the vulnerability - speculates it may be possible to cause IE 8 to rewrite pages in such a way that the new values trigger an attack on a clean site.
"If the attacker can figure out a flaw in the way IE 8 is actually doing that output encoding and then create a specific string the attacker will know will be transformed into an actual attack, they could use that to input a value ... that actually results in an attack firing on the page," he said. "This could be a way to introduce an attack into a page that didn't have a vulnerability otherwise."
XSS attacks are a way of manipulating a site's URL to inject malicious code or content into a trusted webpage. Many security watchers have come to view the IE 8 protections as Microsoft's answer to NoScript, a popular extension that helps prevent XSS and other types of attacks against users of the Firefox browser.
pfft I read that somewhere in another forum. they said IE is bad. I still like IE. Although I haven't been using it lately, there are still good things about IE that Firefox doesn't have.....for example all my favorites are on IE and you can delete a website you typed in on the web address drop down list......
not much though
not much though
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