Less than 2/3 of users have fully patched browsers
According to the recent report, only 59 percent of people use fully patched web browsers, putting the remainder at risk from growing threats from hackers, according to a study by Swiss researchers.
The study is one of the most comprehensive analyses of what versions of web browsers people are using on the Internet. The study was conducted by researchers at The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Google and IBM Internet Security Services.
Web browsers are often a weak link in the security chain, as software vulnerabilities can make it easy for hackers to gain control of a PC. When that happens, hackers can perform malicious acts such as stealing personal data or turning PCs into spam-spewing drones.
The study looked at search and web application server log data provided by Google to see what versions of the Firefox, Opera or Safari browsers people were using, Frei said.
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, however, only tells web servers what major version a person is using, such as IE 6 or IE 7. Firefox users were the best at upgrading: 83.3 percent are using the latest version (the study just looked at Firefox 2.0). For Apple’s Safari, 65.3 percent use the latest version; 56.1 percent for Opera and 47.6 percent for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.
Mozilla’s Firefox came out on top due to its auto-update feature, which tells a user a new patch is available and offers a one-click way to upgrade. Within three days, most Firefox users are up to date, the study said.
On average, people have between six to 10 plug-ins, many of which come from different vendors with different patching regimes and schedules, Frei said.
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