Microsoft has ended technical support and security updates for older versions of its Internet Explorer browser.<\/p>\n
The changes, which will affect versions 8, 9 and 10 of the browser, were announced in August 2014.<\/p>\n
Some estimate that these older browsers account for more than 20% of web traffic while Computerworld claims that only 55% of IE users are using the latest version.<\/p>\n
Browsers are often targeted by hackers and experts predict a crop of attacks.<\/p>\n
“Beginning January 12, 2016, only the most current version of Internet Explorer available for a supported operating system will receive technical support and security updates,” the software giant announced on its website.<\/p>\n
“Microsoft encourages customers to upgrade and stay up-to-date on the latest browser for a faster, more secure browsing experience.”<\/p>\n
It is continuing to support IE 11 and Edge, which is the default browser for Windows 10.<\/p>\n
Hot potato<\/strong><\/p>\n NetMarketShare estimates that Internet Explorer accounts\u00a0for 57% of the browser market, compared with 25% for Chrome, 12% for Firefox and 5% for Apple’s Safari.<\/p>\n According to Computerworld, some 340 million people still rely on older versions of the IE browser.<\/p>\n It has led security experts to warn of a security “hot potato”.<\/p>\n “It is safe to assume that cybercriminals have been stockpiling IE vulnerability information ahead of the support cut-off,” said Craig Young, a researcher at security firm Tripwire.<\/p>\n Mark James, researcher at security firm ESET added: “No updates, no patches, no fixes, no new versions and no support options if things go wrong. This basically means it’s a hot potato and you need to drop it as fast as you can.”<\/p>\n Microsoft has been warning users to upgrade for some time but some believe that it has had the reverse effect – drawing users to rival browsers such as Firefox and Chrome.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Microsoft has ended technical support and security updates for older versions of its Internet Explorer browser. The changes, which will affect versions 8, 9 and 10 of the browser, were announced in August 2014. Some estimate that these older browsers account for more than 20% of web traffic while Computerworld claims that only 55% of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=181345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=181345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=181345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=181345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}