Individual Eleven – The World's Cyberbrain

If you have been living under a small rock over the past few days, then you may not have realised the furore surrounding yet another flaw in a Microsoft product.

Corporations all over the world have been warned to stay away from Internet Explorer version 6, including our very own government. The figures published from another Guardian article outlines just how badly organisations in the public sector need to update their software. I am particularly fond of this:

“More than 750,000 workstations in the NHS and 500,000 in the Department of Work and Pensions use exactly that combination… The DWP installation of IE6/XP in 2002/3 took a total of three years…”

The private sector is not any better. From my own personal experience, businesses still use Internet Explorer 6. It’s almost like a safety blanket that is difficult to let go of. Version 6 has been a browser staple for many years and investing time and effort to roll out new versions is sometimes considered not a priority. Using other browsers is difficult, as Internet Explorer is the main product for domain integration such as the use of group policies.

For many, this is a lesson learned but perhaps a little too late. Details of  the MS10-002 security bulletin issued by Microsoft can be found here.

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