Those security flaws that invited last month’s Scob bug to play and provoked the Department of Homeland Security’s Computer Emergency Response Team to publicly urge Netizens to shift browsers may have had an effect on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer: Web surveyor and analyst WebSideStory say downloads of rival browser Mozilla have jumped in the past month, especially after the new security troubles.
WebSideStory said IE’s browser market share dropped 1 percent in the past month, for the first time since the company began tracking the browser market five years ago. The drop put IE at a 94.7 percent market share, down from 95.7.
Ironically, it was last week that the parent Mozilla Foundation issued new security updates for the Mozilla browser family that also includes Firefox and Thunderbird. But Mozilla Foundation spokesman Bart Decrem told reporters that after the Scob bug was discovered, Mozilla downloads jumped to 200,000 a day.
The flaw into which Scob (also known as Download.Ject) crawled provoked analysts to predict within hours if not days of the bug’s discovery that, this time, browsers like Mozilla and Opera that would not be affected by the flaw would have a grand marketing opportunity. A number of security experts had, in fact, suggested Netizens turn off some IE features or change browsers entirely.
Still-unknown attackers took over a number of Web servers to slip Scob into the personal computers of visitors to certain financial and commercial Websites, particularly banking sites. The bug’s spread turned out to be not as severe as many feared, particularly when the Russian-based server thought to be the bug’s primary conductor was reached and closed down.
The Internet Storm Center offered surfers two choices: disable JavaScript in IE or change browsers entirely.
Meanwhile, reports July 12 indicate Microsoft’s Windows XP Security Pack 2 will begin production in August, a month later than first expected – and that follows the original delay to July. Microsoft has not yet disclosed reasons for the new delay, though a number of Websites devoted to Windows fans were said to suggest that compatibility issues between Security Pack 2 and other software might have been the likely cause.
Security Pack 2 is said to be coming with several new features, most of which deal with security issues, such as a security center offering a view of your computer’s key protection settings, an improved firewall, and other related upgrades. Security Pack 2 work, in fact, compelled Microsoft to set aside work on the next anticipated Windows version, known as Longhorn and expected to arrive in 2006.
