Just when things could not get any worse for Microsoft the giant software company has been forced to warn users of their Internet Explorer browser that they are at serious risk of having their computers hijacked and their confidential information stolen by hackers.
The company who was told last night that their share of the Smartphone maret has slipped to less than 2 percent despite the release of a spanking new mobile operating system Windows Phone 7, is also having to watch as Google, Apple and Firefox strip browser share away as consumers in the millions move away from the problem prone, Internet Explorer browser.
The company earlier today issued a statement saying that they are still trying to develop a permanent fix for the security hole in between time they have issued a temporary fix that prevents hackers from installing malicious script in the browser code.
In a security bulletin, Microsoft said the flaw affected all versions of Windows and although it had yet to encounter “indications of active exploitation of the vulnerability”, the flaw was serious and it was aware of proof-of-concept code exploiting the issue.
“The main impact of the vulnerability is unintended information disclosure,” said Microsoft’s Angela Gunn in an accompanying blog post.
According to new research Microsoft has seen their browser share fall from over 85% to less than 56% during the past 18 months with analysts tipping that Google Chrome could overtake Explorer shortly.
