I’ve long been a fan of the Firefox web browser as I believe it to be far more secure than Interner Explorer (I’ve not read much about, or used, version 8 yet though).
It would appear that right now, however, there is a critical and unpatched flaw in the Firefox browser.
Guido Landi, a security researcher, wrote code that could be utilised in an attack which was then published on many security-related sites yesterday.
Firefox developers had to work on an urgent patch to the flaw because the code released by Landi could be utilised and modified by attackers in order to surreptitiously insert unwelcome software onto the machines of Firefox users.
Mozilla’s critical update will now be released some time next week as part of version 3.0.8 of the browser.
This particular Firefox bug could affect users with a variety of operating systems, ranging from Windows to Linux and even Mac OS.
Attackers could use the flaw to trick web surfers into viewing a maliciously coded XML files and then installing unauthorised software onto their computer.
Such methods of infecting machines are on the increase and are known as ‘drive-by’ downloads.
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I don’t think any browser is safe but Firefox is still considerably more secure than some of the alternatives.
I agree though I am beginning to hear good things about Chrome…