The perils of using Internet Explorer as your default browser
Are you still using Internet Explorer? Chris Jackson, a cybersecurity expert in the Windows division at Microsoft – warns that “We’re not supporting new web standards for it and, while many sites work fine, developers by and large just aren’t testing for Internet Explorer these days. They’re testing on modern browsers.
As an IT service provider, we’re receiving regular emails from our vendors warning us about this challenge. The basic message is this: For increased security, functionality, and compatibility with the newest internet technologies – we’ve decided that our partner administrator portal will no longer be tested on IE. Your client management and end-user accounts will be unaffected. For the best experience and functionality, Google Chrome is the recommended default browser when a managing your PII Protect portal.
From time to time, I’m asked, “How do I ensure that all my web browsing goes to Internet Explorer?” In fact, I was recently asked this question by someone in a dental practice. Now, I understand the scenario. In healthcare (as in many other industries), it’s often the case that you’re operating with a fairly non-technical team. As a result, it can seem that using Internet Explorer be default for all situations is the “easy button” because, well, most of your sites were designed for Internet Explorer, so…just…always use it, ok? In short, this seems like a deliberate decision with little thought towards security and protecting the end users web browsing activities.
Earlier this month Microsoft identified a another Zero-day security vulnerability in Internet Explorer and released a patch for it in the February Patch Tuesday roll-out. We are always saying that end users should make sure they apply Microsoft patches as soon as they can. With Windows 10 this is pretty much handled by Microsoft for you so no big deal.
But… what about those of us who still run Windows 7, Server 2008 and 2008 R2 on a daily basis? This February patch fixed 77 security flaws including the Internet Explorer Zero-day problem. So why wouldn’t we ALL just install it and move on with our lives? Here’s why: After testing the February Monthly Update for these particular operating systems, we’ve identified the same major issue originally seen a few months ago that caused the computers Network Card to stop working requiring either a system restore or using a different online computer to download the correct network card driver to restore internet connectivity.
We anticipate that these challenges to “older” operating systems and Internet Explorer will become a thing of the past by January 2020 when Windows 7, Server 2008 are finally put out to pasture. In the meantime – if you intend to continue running these soon to expire operating systems and older versions of Internet Explorer, it might be wise to Google for any problems with Windows updates before installing them.
