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This malware tool is still successfully exploiting Internet Explorer vulnerabilities

March 4, 2023
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The notorious exploit-as-a-service RIG Exploit Kit, targeting users of the positively ancient, vulnerability-ridden web browser Internet Explorer, is still going strong, experts have warned.

Per a report by security research firm Prodaft, installs of the kit are attempting around 2,000 intrusions a day, and succeeding 30% of the time, allowing it to spread infostealers and other forms of malware to users in over 207 countries.

Despite warning against the rise of cybercrime-as-a-service in 2022’s Microsoft Digital Defence Report, and RIG being known to also distribute ransomware, millions of users (mostly in enterprise) just won’t stop using Windows Explorer, having apparently no regard for data privacy.

Update your browser, please God

Internet Explorer has been old news since around 2015, when the now Chromium-based Edge was put into development, and completely depreciated since August 2021.

And in February 2023, Microsoft announced that it’s finally getting around to scrubbing every last bit of it from existence, such an embarrassment it is in this day and age, and making you use Edge anyway (although you can still do a lot better).

We keep writing about it, and we keep getting emails from burgeoning violent criminals swearing at us over why we bother doling out security posture advice for businesses at all. (Hugs and kisses to all our readership, even if they’ve fled an institution. xox)

> Google says North Korea targeted an Internet Explorer zero-day vulnerability

> Microsoft prepares for Internet Explorer’s retirement by making Edge better

> We’ve also listed the best endpoint protection services

But, do you know what, we’re going to do it again: buy new laptops running Windows 11, and enjoy all the advancements in UI that have come on in the last 28 years, you wanton maniac.

And then maybe you won’t have to keep a straight face in front of IT when threat actors known only as “Bean Meme Gang” steal the private medical records of a million people, and we could write about something else.

Here’s our list of the best business VPN services right now

Via BleepingComputer

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

March 18, 2022
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Microsoft has once again urged users to stop using its outdated Internet Explorer browser as the software limps closer to its retirement.

The company has again reminded users that Internet Explorer 11 is being retired from Windows 10 in June 2022, with Microsoft Edge taking its place.

It seems that some users may be a touch unwilling to make the jump, however, with Microsoft forced to emphasise that the days of Internet Explorer really are numbered.

The future is Edge

“As previously announced, the future of Internet Explorer on Windows is in Microsoft Edge,” Microsoft stated in a company announcement.

“The Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) desktop application will be retired on June 15, 2022, for certain versions of Windows 10. This means that the IE11 desktop application will no longer be supported and afterward will redirect to Microsoft Edge if a user tries to access it.”

The company did highlight that any particularly nostalgia-driven users can still use Internet Explorer mode (IE mode) within Microsoft Edge for the time being. IE mode aims to support legacy websites and applications within Microsoft Edge until they can be ported over to the new software.

> Microsoft Edge is about to give you an excellent new way to procrastinate

> Internet Explorer might not be entirely dead just yet

> Microsoft 365 update will make sure no one is at a disadvantage

Microsoft first announced plans to retire support for Internet Explorer 11 across Windows 10 and Microsoft 365 back in August 2020, and since then has been gradually stripping back services for the software.

Its Microsoft 365 deadline passed in August 2021, although some apps may still function via the browser, albeit with users seeing a severely diminished experience.

External tools have also pulled back, with Google Search withdrawing support for Internet Explorer in October 2021, leaving the browser reliant on its own in-house Bing search, with support for Docs, Sheets, Slides and other Google Workspace apps removed in March 2021.

Microsoft Edge continues to perform strongly in the global browser market, with recent figures placing it on the verge of surpassing Apple's Safari offering.

The latest StatCounter numbers show Microsoft Edge is now used on 9.54% of desktops worldwide, just behind Safari at 9.84% – although both are still far behind runaway market leader Google Chrome on 65.38%.

Here’s our list of the best anonymous browsers around

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

March 18, 2022
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Microsoft has once again urged users to stop using its outdated Internet Explorer browser as the software limps closer to its retirement.

The company has again reminded users that Internet Explorer 11 is being retired from Windows 10 in June 2022, with Microsoft Edge taking its place.

It seems that some users may be a touch unwilling to make the jump, however, with Microsoft forced to emphasise that the days of Internet Explorer really are numbered.

The future is Edge

“As previously announced, the future of Internet Explorer on Windows is in Microsoft Edge,” Microsoft stated in a company announcement.

> Microsoft Edge is about to give you an excellent new way to procrastinate

> Internet Explorer might not be entirely dead just yet

> Microsoft 365 update will make sure no one is at a disadvantage

Its Microsoft 365 deadline passed in August 2021, although some apps may still function via the browser, albeit with users seeing a severely diminished experience.

Microsoft Edge continues to perform strongly in the global browser market, with recent figures placing it on the verge of surpassing Apple's Safari offering.

Here’s our list of the best anonymous browsers around

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

March 18, 2022
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Searching for a query in Google Chrome could soon get much easier, thanks to an upcoming feature that adds a sidebar as you browse the web.

With Google's Chrome web browser approaching version 100, we're already seeing some features that can help change the way you use the browser, such as improvements to closing tabs in Android, and it's likely that we may see other features appear as we approach the big release.

If you have multiple tabs open at once, this could be a great feature for searching as you browse. However, it looks like the sidebar will only show in one tab – it won't stay in the same place as you switch between different tabs.

However, this is still a feature in testing, so the sidebar could change before it appears in a final version of Google Chrome.

How do you enable the side search bar?

Google Chrome Canary showing how to enable Side Search — (Image credit: TechRadar)

As it stands, the sidebar isn't available in Google Chrome 99, but it is in the test version of Chrome, called Canary.

Go to chrome://flags when running Google Chrome Canary version 100, and you'll be brought to the flag page, where you can enable many features in testing.

In the search bar, type in 'Sidebar' and you'll be greeted with three options. Enable all of these, then close and open up the browser.

Search for a query and select the first result. A 'G' icon will appear alongside the address bar. Click on this, which will make the sidebar appear. You can then use this to search for anything else while you browse in the main window.

Our pick of the best Chromebooks in 2022 so far

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

March 18, 2022
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Searching for a query in Google Chrome could soon get much easier, thanks to an upcoming feature that adds a sidebar as you browse the web.

However, this is still a feature in testing, so the sidebar could change before it appears in a final version of Google Chrome.

How do you enable the side search bar?

As it stands, the sidebar isn't available in Google Chrome 99, but it is in the test version of Chrome, called Canary.

Go to chrome://flags when running Google Chrome Canary version 100, and you'll be brought to the flag page, where you can enable many features in testing.

In the search bar, type in 'Sidebar' and you'll be greeted with three options. Enable all of these, then close and open up the browser.

Our pick of the best Chromebooks in 2022 so far

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

February 17, 2022
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Mozilla is giving a heads up to website developers that the upcoming three-digit versions of the popular internet browsers Firefox and Chrome might cause some websites to break.

In a Mozilla blog post by Karl Dubost, Chris Peterson, Ali Beyad, the company says the error might happen when browsers parse user-agent strings containing the three-digit version numbers.

The user-agent string contains various information about the browser software, such as the name, or, crucially – version number and supported technologies. When websites receive this information, they modify their response based on the browser version and the technologies supported.

Preparations and mitigations

When browsers made the jump from single-digit versions, to double-digit versions, some websites could not be displayed.

However, this time around – both Mozilla and Google are preparing for the new versions (coming in early May and late March, respectively) in advance. Last August, Mozilla started experimenting to see if version 100 would break some websites, and Google soon followed.

In fact, both developers found a few misbehaving websites, where “unsupported browser” messages would be displayed, or broken interfaces shown.

> Mozilla has shut down its most pointless Firefox browser

> Google Chrome 100 update may break your website – but there's a fix

> One of the best Google Chrome features is getting an upgrade

“Without a single specification to follow, different browsers have different formats for the User-Agent string, and site-specific User-Agent parsing. It’s possible that some parsing libraries may have hard-coded assumptions or bugs that don’t take into account three-digit major version numbers,” Mozilla says.

“Many libraries improved the parsing logic when browsers moved to two-digit version numbers, so hitting the three-digit milestone is expected to cause fewer problems.”

If the companies fail to solve the issues by the release dates, they both have contingency plans: to freeze the user-agent at 99. Furthermore, Firefox will also be able to inject CSS and other similar overrides.

Mozilla has also urged website developers to test their websites for upcoming browsers, with the detailed steps available on the Mozilla blog here.

These are the best business VPN tools available now

Via: BleepingComputer

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

February 3, 2022
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Internet Explorer may soon be set for a passage to the graveyard, but developers will be able to feel like they are still using the iconic software thanks to a new launch from its successor, Microsoft Edge.

Microsoft still offers an “Internet Explorer mode” in Chromium-based Edge, but has now released a new tool to allow developers to check whether their legacy websites will still work in the more recent browser.

Internet Explorer Driver allows those organizations or developers that still require the use of Internet Explorer 11 for backward compatibility of business-critical legacy websites or apps to make sure everything is still running smoothly, for now at least.

Internet Explorer Driver

Run alongside (and maintained by) browser automation experts at the Selenium Project, Internet Explorer Driver can be a great help to developers looking to keep legacy websites or apps running that little bit longer, Microsoft says.

“With just a few changes to an existing test that runs against Internet Explorer, you can get your tests running in Internet Explorer (IE) mode in Edge,” Zoher Ghadyali, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Edge, wrote in a blog post.

“By running your tests in IE mode, you will be able to verify that any legacy web content that runs in Internet Explorer will work as expected in IE mode in Microsoft Edge.”

Internet Explorer Driver supports C#, Python, Java, and JavaScript, and Microsoft says it will be supported until 2029, giving developers more than enough time to ensure their work is stable.

> Watch out, that Microsoft Edge update is actually ransomware

> It really is time to ditch Internet Explorer now

> Microsoft 365 update will make sure no one is at a disadvantage

Microsoft does note that support for Internet Explorer 11 is still set to begin expiring from June 15 2022, and developers and organizations that still depend on the browser should start to transition to Microsoft Edge as soon as possible.

The company has already withdrawn Internet Explorer support for all Microsoft 365 apps, although some may still function via the browser, albeit with users seeing a severely diminished experience.

Even Google Search pulled support for Internet Explorer in October 2021, leaving the browser reliant on its own in-house Bing search, with support for Docs, Sheets, Slides and other Google Workspace apps removed in March 2021.

Here’s our list of the best anonymous browsers around

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

January 25, 2022
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Some of the bursts of traffic reached up to 10Gbps, reports noted, overwhelming the country’s only ISP, and crippling Andorran Squidcraft gamers along with the rest of the population.
Threatpost

January 7, 2022
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There are active ransomware and brute-force attacks being launched against internet-exposed, network-attached storage devices, the device maker warned.
Threatpost

December 3, 2021
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Microsoft Edge’s mini-game which can be played as a diversion when the browser can’t get online has been given a snowy twist for winter, with the traditional ‘surf game’ being changed into a skiing challenge that’s a blast of nostalgia (we’ll come back to its origins later).

If you aren’t familiar with the surf game, it’s basically Edge’s equivalent of the dinosaur game in Chrome – a mini-game for the browser which you can play when your internet is offline (or when you’re bored at any time, for that matter).

Normally, the Edge game allows you to use the keyboard (or mouse, touchscreen, or controller) to guide a surfer down the screen, avoiding obstacles, hitting jumps, and sometimes being pursued by a deadly monster – the kraken.

In the new skiing version for Edge 96, spotted by German tech site Deskmodder, the ocean is replaced by a snowy slope, and the kraken becomes a yeti (aka the abominable snowman).

Get your winter clothes on and hit the slopes with a limited-time skiing theme for the surf game in Microsoft Edge 96! Can you avoid the yeti while taking a trip down memory lane?🎿 Type edge://surf/ into Microsoft Edge to play! pic.twitter.com/EJObcaTSGyNovember 23, 2021

Otherwise, it remains essentially the same, offering a few different modes of play (endless, time trial, and zigzag which is a slalom) and being more fleshed out than Chrome Dino (which is a pure side-scroller with the only control being space to jump).

If you want to play, simply open Edge and type in the following in the address bar:

edge://surf

Analysis: SkiFree returns after 30 years

The surf game for Edge came out in May 2020 (with build 83) and is based on Microsoft’s aged classic SkiFree game that was released way back in 1991. So in actual fact, this new winter-inspired version is a return to the original format of a skiing game.

It’s a fun distraction, for sure, and a more interesting game than Chrome Dino – plus also it’s less prone to giving us slight motion sickness, which the dinosaur game seems to do when it starts to speed up with ridiculously fast scrolling.

Those keen to find more of these kinds of efforts to play should check out our roundup of the best free browser games.

Check out the best anonymous browsers

Via MS Power User

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

Posts tagged "Internet"

This malware tool is still successfully exploiting Internet Explorer vulnerabilities

Update your browser, please God

If you’re still using Internet Explorer, just please stop now, Microsoft says

The future is Edge

If you’re still using Internet Explorer, just please stop now, Microsoft says

The future is Edge

Google Chrome 100 won’t break the internet – but could change how you search it

How do you enable the side search bar?

Google Chrome 100 won’t break the internet – but could change how you search it

How do you enable the side search bar?

Firefox and Chrome 100 could break parts of the internet, Mozilla warns

Preparations and mitigations

Internet Explorer might not be entirely dead just yet

Internet Explorer Driver

Cyberattacks on Squid Game Minecraft Tourney Take Down Andorra’s Internet

QNAP: Get NAS Devices Off the Internet Now

Microsoft Edge resurrects this classic Windows game when your internet dies

Analysis: SkiFree returns after 30 years