A dangerous vulnerability for everyone: why you should remove Internet Explorer even if you don't use it

Microsoft has issued a warning about the dangers posed by the Internet Explorer browser. A critical vulnerability was discovered in it, which allows attackers to hack into a computer and gain access to the user’s personal data.
It is reported that browser versions 9-11 are affected by this vulnerability. Anyone who uses Internet Explorer on a regular basis is advised to immediately download the update with the patch to prevent hackers from gaining access to the system.
“The vulnerability could corrupt memory in such a way that an attacker could execute arbitrary code as the current user. If the current user is logged on as an administrator, an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain control of the entire system,” Microsoft said in a statement.
According to Michal Salat, Director of Threat Research at Avast, the situation with Internet Explorer once again proves that the use of outdated programs poses a threat to PC security: attackers can abuse vulnerabilities to attack users.
“This vulnerability is assigned the Common Vulnerabilities and Impacts number, CVE-2019-1367. This is a vulnerability within the mechanism that is responsible for running website scripts, such as JavaScript.
Simply visiting a web page infected with an exploit targeting this vulnerability by a user will allow the attacker to perform remote code execution, which means running the program on the victim's PC.
If the user has administrator rights (and this is quite common on a PC where Internet Explorer is installed), the attacker will gain full control of the PC. Even with lower access rights, it will not be difficult for an attacker to gain administrator rights,” said Salat.
According to Avast statistics, almost 58% of computer applications installed on Russian PCs are outdated.
“Our experts strongly recommend that users immediately install all updates as soon as they become available. You should also not use outdated software, such as Internet Explorer, and outdated operating systems, such as Windows XP and Windows Vista,” the expert recommended.
At the same time, questions for those who use Internet Explorer have been long overdue - this is not the first time Microsoft has warned about the dangers of its brainchild. In February of this year, the company's information security expert Chris Jackson published a post asking users to stop using IE as their default browser.
According to Jackson, he is still contacted by a large number of people whose companies use Internet Explorer, since some programs are based on it. But instead of installing newer applications that support modern browsers, people continue to desperately cling to IE, which even its creator is calling for to be abandoned.
“There is a limit to everything,” Jackson said, calling for Internet Explorer to be completely abandoned as a browser.
Two months later, information appeared on the Internet that Internet Explorer could pose a threat even to those who do not use it, but simply left the program on the system out of old memory.
Researcher John Page has discovered a vulnerability that allows hackers to steal Windows user's personal data using Internet Explorer, which does not even need to be launched - the danger is represented by files with the .MHT extension in which the browser stores its archives. In order for an attacker to gain access to the system, it is enough to open a document received via e-mail, messenger or any other messaging service. If Internet Explorer is installed on your computer, it becomes an open book for a hacker.
Obviously, you should stop using, or better yet, completely uninstall Internet Explorer and switch to a more modern browser. Yes, just in case.
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