M$ is nothing if not inconsistent.) There's a Version value under that registry key (as well as a W2KVersion and Build value). (Naturally, this time it's "Microsoft" Internet Explorer, not "Windows" Internet Explorer. If you look for it in the I's, you won't find it.Īs for IE8 registry entries, try running regedit and looking under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer. The flaw comes just weeks after the discovery of the Heartbleed bug - a two-year-old weakness in the encryption used to protect sensitive data such as passwords when they are sent between computers and servers, which is still being tackled with patches to fix affected websites.When IE8 is installed, it appears in Add/Remove programs under "Windows" Internet Explorer 8. We made this exception based on the proximity to the end of support for Windows XP." "Even though Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft and is past the time we normally provide security updates, we've decided to provide an update for all versions of Windows XP, today. "We believe, and take a huge amount of pride that, among widely used browsers, IE is the safest in the world due to its secure development and ability to protect customers, even in the face of cybercriminals who want to break it. Hall said: "The security of our products is something we take incredibly seriously, so the news coverage of the last few days about a vulnerability in Internet Explorer has been tough for our customers and for us. The decision to release the patch for free also calls into question the commercial contracts that governments and big businesses have negotiated to keep special cover for XP - on the understanding that they would not otherwise be available. The decision to update the XP version of Internet Explorer, which is a key element of XP and often exploited by hackers to break into the wider system, raises the question of whether Microsoft will be able to ignore future threats that surface. The security issue was discovered earlier this week, with Microsoft issuing a statement via its website explaining how hackers could gain access to a user's computer and all its settings by drawing them to malicious websites via links sent in emails or other messages.Īccording to Microsoft, any successful hacker could have gained full access to the victim's user account should a malicious link be followed, meaning the hacker would be able to change passwords and access any data linked to that account, including email and other personal data. "In addition to previously observed attacks against the Defense and Financial sectors, organization in the Government- and Energy-sector are now also facing attack," said Dan Caselden and Xiaobo Chen. "The reality is there have been a very small number of attacks based on this particular vulnerability and concerns were, frankly, overblown."īut the security consultancy FireEye said that it had seen a number of attacks exploiting the flaw, including some by state-sponsored hackers. Microsoft decided to issue the update "based on the proximity to the end of support for Windows XP," wrote Adrienne Hall, Microsoft's general manager for Trustworthy Computing in a blogpost. Additionally, customers are encouraged to upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer, IE 11." Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft, and we continue to encourage customers to migrate to a modern operating system, such as Windows 7 or 8.1. Microsoft group manager of response communications Dustin Childs said: "We have made the decision to issue a security update for Windows XP users. But with so many individual and business users still running XP - including the UK government, which paid millions of pounds for a one-year extension to get security updates - Microsoft has included XP in the update and provided it free to the hundreds of millions of users.
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