IE8 Blocked Over 1 Billion Malware Download Attempts

Internet Explorer 8 is superior to all rival browser in terms of security, revealed Kevin Turner, Microsoft Chief Operating Officer, during the company’s recent Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC)2010. “IE9 is going to be not only the most safest and secure browser in the market, which IE8 is today, it will be the fastest browser in the market,” Turner said last week, and now Microsoft has new data to support this statement. Internet Explorer 8 has managed to block in excess of 1 billion attempts to download malicious code.

The figure is nothing short of impressive, especially considering that IE8 was launched in March 2009. When it debuted on the market, IE8 introduced a new feature, an evolved version of a security mitigation from a the previous version of Internet Explorer, namely the SmartScreen Filter. It is the SmartScreen Filter that’s responsible for blocking over 1 billion malware downloads.

“Socially engineering attacks like malware are a growing threat on the internet and are one of the most common risks to people’s safety online. We introduced malware protection in Internet Explorer 8 as part of the SmartScreen Filter,” revealed senior product manager James Pratt.

For those not familiar with IE8 SmartScreen Filter, the feature is capable of alerting users when they are about to be tricked through socially engineering attacks to visit malware phishing Web sites, or become victims of online fraud.

“SmartScreen Filter: checks Web sites against a dynamically updated list of reported phishing and sites; checks software downloads against a dynamically updated list of reported malicious software sites; helps prevent you from visiting phishing Web sites and other Web sites that contain malware that can lead to identity theft,” Microsoft revealed.

The SmartScreen Filter technology in IE8 has been praised by the NSS Labs on several occasions. NSS Labs compared the level of browser security against social engineering threats, and found IE8 to be superior to its rivals, including Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari.

“Our malware block rates continue to improve because we continue to improve the SmartScreen service back-end. For example, in August 2009 we had blocked about 70 million attempts to download malware or about 18 million blocks per month. At the time, according to Net Applications, about 15% of the internet population used Internet Explorer 8. In the last two months, we’ve blocked 100 million attempts to download malware. Last month, according to Net Applications, nearly 26% of the internet population uses Internet Explorer 8. There are 1.7 times more users on Internet Explorer 8 than August 2009 but we’re blocking 5 times more malware month on month,” Pratt added.

There’s no patch when the “security problems” sit between the seat and the monitor

With IE8’s SmartScreen filter, Microsoft proves that there are solutions possible even when no patch can be delivered for “security problems” that sit between the seat and the monitor. Social engineering attacks prey on unsuspecting users, attempting to trick victims through various tactics, and get their machines infected with malware, steal their identities, empty their bank accounts, etc. Social engineering refers to exploiting the user, and not vulnerabilities in software, and in this context, there are no security updates designed to simply fix the issue.

“1 billion malware blocks is an amazing milestone and an example of two things. First socially engineered attacks like malware continue to be a real threat for users on the web. Second, to help keep you safe online your browser needs to continually enhance and improve its service. We have got better and better at blocking malware through the SmartScreen Filter because we have continued to invest in our back end service since we released IE8 in March 2009. It’s this investment that has kept us at the top of the socially engineering malware charts according to NSS Labs and has helped our customers stay safe online,” Pratt stated.

Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) RTW is available for download here (for 32-bit and 64-bit flavors of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008).