Internet Explorer is THE MOST Secure Web Browser… Who'd Have Thought That!

A report compiled by security company Bit9 has named the “dirty dozen” web browsers with the most discovered vulnerabilities, and the results, which have been posted by NeoWin come as something of a, well let’s face it, a major surprise.

Bit9′s CEO, Harry Sverdlove said “A variety of vulnerability types – including buffer-overflow and cross-site scripting vulnerabilities – impacted these applications.  Some exploits of vulnerabilities could allow attacks to compromise the user’s desktop entirely and perhaps pose a risk for the entire organization. A list like the annual ‘Dirty Dozen’ highlights trends and the need to make sure software is kept updated.

The biggest surprise is that Google’s Chrome browser tops the vulnerabilities list with 76.  Safari and Firefox also scored badly with 60 and 51 respectively.  Conversely, Internet Explorer had only 32.  The complete list is below.

1. google chrome – 76
2. Apple Safari – 60
3. Microsoft Office – 57
4. Adobe Acrobat – 54
5. Mozilla Firefox – 51
6. Sun JDK – 36
7. Adobe Shockwave Player – 35
8. Microsoft Internet Explorer – 32
9. Real Networks Real player – 14
10. Apple Webkit – 9
11. Adobe Flash Player – 8
12. Apple Quicktime and Opera Web browser (tied) – 6

This will obviously be inflammatory news to anyone who doesn’t like internet explorer (though recently versions of the browser cannot be compared to IE6) and there will people who will point to all the ‘undiscovered’ vulnerabilities in the browser.

However it pans out over time, it’s clear that Microsoft’s recent strategies are paying dividends for the company in terms of helping increase their reputation around the world.  It will be interesting to see how IE9 stacks up against the other browsers in 12 months time.