The number of security flaws in IE is continuously increasing

Jul 28, 2014 05:35 GMT  ·  By
The number of flaws found this year in IE exceeds the one reported last year
   The number of flaws found this year in IE exceeds the one reported last year

Microsoft is making really big efforts to make Internet Explorer more secure and thus help it compete with other popular browsers on the market, including Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, but it appears that the company has until now failed to make any difference.

A report (PDF reader needed) published by Bromium reveals that Internet Explorer is not only the most vulnerable browser in the first half of 2014, but also the most vulnerable software application currently on the market, with the number of security flaws exceeding the one of other products that have become famous for such problems, including Java and Flash Player.

As you can see for yourselves in the chart above, Internet Explorer currently has the biggest number of security flaws reported this year, and figures are obviously expected to continue growing as more glitches are being found.

To detail the graph, Bromium marked vulnerabilities found in 2013 with a blue bar, while those reported in the first half of this year are represented by the red bar.

There are two major conclusions which anyone can draw by simply analyzing these figures: Internet Explorer is clearly the most vulnerable application on the market right now and the number of issues reported this year has already exceeded the number of flaws found in the whole of 2013.

As for the reasons that are making Internet Explorer such a vulnerable browser, probably the most obvious reason is the retirement of older versions, including those that were running on Windows XP, which also reached end of support on April 8.

At this point, Internet Explorer 8, which is no longer supported by Microsoft, is said to be the leading browser on the market, with a market share of around 21 percent. Since Redmond is no longer patching the browser, it’s really easy to see how IE8 is becoming vulnerable to attacks, with users still not willing to make the switch to another application.

Microsoft has obviously released several warnings, but until now only a few users actually decided to replace Internet Explorer with another browser or to upgrade their operating system and thus get a more secure IE version.

“Windows Internet Explorer 8 is also no longer supported, so if you use it (or any other browser) to surf the web, you might be exposing your PC to additional threats,” Microsoft briefly said in a statement when it announced that Windows XP reached end of support.