IE8 Just as Secure as Firefox and Chrome, Says Security Expert

Microsoft’s consistent efforts to bulletproof the latest major iterations of Windows and the Internet Explorer default component are paying off. Internet Explorer 8 managed to come up on top of rivals in the most recent versions of the NSS Labs tests designed to try out the level of protection against socially engineered malware. In addition, the Redmond company has been receiving a thumbs up from security experts, both for its overall work on security as well as its focus on improving the level of protection for IE8 users.

In an interview with Softpedia, Ondrej Vlcek CTO AVAST Software, noted that IE8’s security is on par with that of rival browsers Firefox and Chrome. At the same time Vlcek downplayed the relevancy of Chrome’s sandboxing in terms of actually improving user security.

“We don't see any meaningful difference in the security of IE8 versus that of the newest Firefox or even Chrome, which has the tab sandboxing. I don't think the Chrome sandbox was really designed as an anti-malware measure. It's more about the stability of the individual tabs – crashing of one tab not injuring the others. It's not really that efficient against malware,” Vlcek said.

Back in April 2010 Marc Maiffret, a former iconic hacker turned security researcher, now occupying the position of chief security architect at FireEye, praised the Redmond giant for the Security Development Lifecycle, and noted that Microsoft’s software is superior to Apple’s in terms of security. More recently, security expert Paula Januszkiewicz revealed that she has opted for IE8 over its rivals.

“But, in general I'd say that the browsers – all major browsers on the market – are probably the most secure pieces of software that you can ever meet, because they've been scrutinized so many times and there are so many eyes looking at them. They're really quite safe compared to all the other components which are addressable from the browsers, but are not part of them, such as PDF readers, etc., that are usually more problematic,” Vlcek added.

Make sure to read the full interview with Ondrej Vlcek via this link. There are a lot of interesting topics, and the interview will surely make a good read. Of course, this is just the first part of Lucian Constantin’s talk with Vlcek. Make sure to keep an eye on Softpedia, and read the second part of the interview soon.

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).

Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Platform Preview is available for download here.

Firefox 4.0 Beta is available for download here.

Chrome 6.0 Dev is available for download here.

Opera 10.70 Alpha is available for download here.

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