With a recent revelation that IE 11 may be dangerous, it is advisable to move away from using this outdated technology and instead use other more modern, open source web browsers.
Internet Explorer 11 is in fact used only by about 7% of Windows users and the perils of remaining a part of that tiny group have just been brought into sharp focus.
In a recent article in Forbes, Security researcher John Page warns: “Microsoft's Internet Explorer has a critical security flaw that allows hackers to spy on you and steal personal data from your PC.”
A move by Microsoft to use Chromium technology in its latest ‘edge’ browser at the back end of 2018 further strengthens the point that IE11 is becoming redundant as a specialist browser and that Chrome is a safer option that provides a better user experience.
The dangers of IE11
Even if you don’t intentionally use Internet Explorer, you may still be exposed to hackers. For example if someone were to send you a malicious .MHT file (perhaps disguised as a download link or an email attachment), Internet Explorer would be the default application to open it.
According to Page, once a user opens this malicious .MHT file, the vulnerability is created there and then even though it may not be exploited straight away. The specific flaw in the code relies on the user to first issue certain keystrokes or specific print commands.
At that point, an external attacker can gain remote access to a PC. This shows how careful you need to be about security and why web developers may now feel the need to drop IE 11 from their design thoughts.
An Exception to the rule?
However, there may still be one reason to keep IE 11 relevant, and that would be when it comes to designing Intranets. This is because intranets are generally blocked from public view and Microsoft introduced a new Internet Explorer group policy to restrict IE11 usage to only sites on the Enterprise Mode Site list.
BBI Brandboost’s highly skilled operations team can work with you to set up or redesign an intranet that works with the IT infrastructure of your business. If you have a company-wide IT policy that defines the operating system and browser to be used across all PC’s, we can design and build the right intranet for your business, whether the specified browser is Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox or anything else!