Is The Firefox Honeymoon Over? 560
prostoalex writes "With Firefox market share reaching a substantial level, is the popular Internet browser becoming a security nightmare for IT administrators? George Ou takes a look at the hard numbers. From the article: 'From March 2005 to September 2005 10 vulnerabilities were published for Microsoft Internet Explorer, 40 for Mozilla Firefox. In April-September timespan there were 6 exploits for MSIE, 11 for Firefox. Conclusion? As you can see, the facade that Firefox is the cure to the Internet Explorer security blues is quickly fading. It just goes to prove that any popular software worth hacking that has security vulnerabilities will eventually have to deal with live working exploits. Firefox mostly managed to stay under the radar from hackers before April of 2005.'"
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:5, Insightful)
But the submitter is right. Though code security is important, the number of users is also a huge factor.
Cue someone to mention Apache.
Yes, Apache is everywhere, exploit-free. So are lots and lots of other binaries. It's only when you compare Apache to IIS 4/5 that it's really such a perfect example. Compare it to WinAMP, or Bash, or Finder, and its no more, no less secure.
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't really believe in this, but arguing like that is arguing against Firefox.
My personal opinion on these things is: People care way too much about browser religion. Let people use IE, not that much wrong with it. Both IE and Firefox are huge complex applications processing huge amounts of diverse untrusted data. Sure it'd be great if they were secure, but it is just not happening that way yet.
There might be some hope on the horizon with low-rights IE7. It might be that it really does manage to remove the impact of the bugs, which is really the best case scenario as things stand. If so we will no doubt see similar approaches integrated in Linux desktops and see Firefox refactored to use the same approach.
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:5, Insightful)
If this is so it just leads to the question: Why should people use Firefox now then? Lets wait until 2010 when it will actually be better and stick to IE which is better now.
Except then Firefox will not get developed to as high a level as IE has and will never reach that point. Note that this observer has the same problem as most observers who say, "It's better!" And that problem is that the numbers aren't exactly fairly proportioned. An IE hack that gives someone access to all your 'net data then wipes your entire hard drive is counted as one bug, as is a firefox flaw that gives someone access to your last ten sites viewed. That's a biased and unfounded example, but the reality stands regardless - THIS IS NOT A GOOD WAY TO DO A SECURITY STUDY.
I don't really believe in this, but arguing like that is arguing against Firefox.
It is arguing against the further development of Firefox, too. No users, no development.
My personal opinion on these things is: People care way too much about browser religion. Let people use IE, not that much wrong with it.
There's piles of things wrong with IE, they're just not user-visible all the time and that is a main portion of the problem's gestalt.
Both IE and Firefox are huge complex applications processing huge amounts of diverse untrusted data. Sure it'd be great if they were secure, but it is just not happening that way yet.
You can lock Firefox down if you want. Won't be able to see EVERYTHING, but it will definitely be secure. Not quite anywhere near as true with IE.
There might be some hope on the horizon with low-rights IE7. It might be that it really does manage to remove the impact of the bugs, which is really the best case scenario as things stand.
You can do this in linux. Natively. Just make yourself a different user with no rights to do certain things. Try that in Windows and see if it works for you. As to the, "Microsoft will solve everything in the end" mentality, well, I can't really argue with that.
If so we will no doubt see similar approaches integrated in Linux desktops and see Firefox refactored to use the same approach.
You're looking at it the wrong way. Microsoft is behind and has been so for a very long time. The stuff you want is part of the problem with their occasional 'buy instead of implement' business model.
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:5, Insightful)
As for IE7, I haven't seen any features promised that Firefox doesn't already have. And I think Firefox is still more standards-compliant, which is a pretty big deal to me. Also, Microsoft's general attitude toward their web services has been contrary to the spirit of common standards with multiple implementations, and has almost always been some kind of maneuver to force a lock-in. They thought they had that with IE 4.0, which explains why they didn't really take the broswer any further until maybe now.
This presents a kind of moral argument for using Firefox over IE. It sounds ridiculous on the surface, and it would be in any kind of sane universe. But we have Microsoft.
Does ActiveX support limited capabilities? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not everyone uses HTML as an interface to the masses - DHTML has proven itself to be a compelling application front end.
DHTML is scripted manipulation of the HTML DOM. It needs no custom ActiveX controls. AJAX as I know it is just DHTML + XMLHttpRequest.
I've been developing exclusively with IE & HTML & Binary Behaviours (a form of activex) with AJAX style architecture for more than six years because it's just so easy to turn out great looking apps.
Where were these apps deployed? On the Int
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:5, Insightful)
Best for the user right now is probably Opera - noone is willing to pay for a browser so there aren't really that many people willing to mess around with writing viruses and crap for it. As to whether Firefox or IE is better, well... Hard to say. I'd have to sift through exactly what the holes found in Firefox were, but last time I read up in any detail on the security holes found in an Open Source project, I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were all holes in tertiary stuff... Linux server software (and this is not necessarily true of Firefox, I'm really going way out on a limb here, and it will take backup from someone who keeps completely on top of this to really help me out... hint hint...) has bugs and problems and security patches, yes, but they're for a minor exploit that crashes or allows someone in through highly obscure software. Microsoft, since it's all one big piece, ends up handing you the keys to the castle. Therefore, one Microsoft bug can be seen as an unequivocal disaster and twenty Linux bugs can be seen as a biteme.
This is one that shows up over and over, that IE's basic design is flawed. Which is, as far as I can tell, unfounded. All the external interfaces and architecture seems clean and nice enough, and since I (and I would guess; you) have no way to look at the source I can't say that we have any reason to believe that the IE source is in a bad state.
This is where I do have proof. All those security patches for IE? Yeah, design flaw. It's not an arms race to fight off the hackers at the gate because you wrote effective, stable software. It's an arms race to fight off the hackers at the gate because you wanted to lock Netscape and friends out of the browser industry by making ActiveX mildly attractive and highly proprietary / dangerous to work in due to its features which were promised but under-tested. Or badly designed. Take your pick.
This is not a process-level permission thing (which would wreck the way the application works, you need to be able to save files, change settings and so on for it to be a sane desktop application). Rather Microsoft is finally getting around leveraging and extending the rather advanced and fine-grained NT security model for something. The basic idea is that most of the application runs with very restricted permissions and can launch subcomponents like a download or settings panel that have a higher level of permission. This is set on a very fine-grained level. There is no need to have separate components, nor is it all-or-nothing, a component can have access to specific system calls according with specific parameters, they may change only some given parts of the registry and so on.
You mean like Unix? What an innovation!
This I call bullshit,
Microsoft has been behind in security design for over a decade. I was working in Unix, which is capable of doing the things you're calling revolutionary, when I was in junior high a full uhm.... Longer than I want to think about... ago. Everything is a file and files have - while not a perfect permissions system - at least something which is designed for multi-user and therefore easily modifiable to multi-permission. Call BS all you want, but M$ has a lot of spaghetti code in your computer....
I'm trying not to be biased here, but I obviously am very much so.
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:3, Informative)
ActiveX is not
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, (for example) IE implements the XMLHTTPRequest (javascript) object as an ActiveX control. This is a favourite new toy for very spiffy interactive webpages (think AJAX). Examples of things that break if you turn ActiveX off: Gmail, google maps, google suggest
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:3, Funny)
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:3, Informative)
I installed Firefox myself. Until I read your post, -I- didn't know about said red arrow. Of course, I periodically update it anyway, so it's not a big deal, and since I don't see what you're talking about, I assume I'm up-to-date enough, but....
Anyway, I sort-of like the "There is an update available. Would you like to install it?" dialog on launch that a lot of apps do. Just so long as it isn't broken like the one in Adobe Acrobat Reader. Running 1.5.0 and it says "A
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:5, Interesting)
More importantly, when I switch my users to Firefox, they cease to have problems. More exploits or not, FF causes fewer headaches. When it's all said and done, I'll choose FF's problems over IE's problems.
right, and the statistics are bad anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
exactly. and really, at the end of the day it's not just number of the exploits, is it? maybe firefox has 44 exploits, all of which are easily implemented by a supreme diety who speaks assembler like a native speakers, and which, once done, make the browser a little slower or the graphics render funny.
whereas there may be only 6 exploits for IE, but my dog can (and does) routinely use them, and every single one of the roots the box the browser's running on.
this is clearly exagerated a bit, but the simple *number* of exploits isn't too relevent
Apache vs. IIS vs. PWS (Score:2)
The Difference isn't the number of users, it's the number of people actively looking for exploits. I could write a crappy piece of code with 100% market share, but if no one is trying to break it, it'll probably be pretty darn "secure"
-Adam
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:5, Informative)
There are flaws in IE that have been known for better than 6-8 months and still there is no fix.
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, sure... I'll bite. I don't buy it. Name ONE risky security flaw that has been known for 6 months without being patched by Microsoft.
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://secunia.com/product/11/ [secunia.com]
Watch what you ask for, you just might get it.
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:3, Informative)
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, at least one other [secunia.com] involves the possible exploitation of malicious code, although it requires active user input to do so.
But let's look at that one big famous doozie, the ActiveX [secunia.com] exploit. That was reported in August 2003 - that's over two years ago!! It requires no user intervention if ActiveX is enabled, ca
Inherent Design Flaw (Score:3, Informative)
I can't believe the most critical vulnerability inherent in IE has not been mentioned yet. What I am referring to is the fact that IE is a shell to the operating system
For the benefit of those who don't know what that means, opening up IE is effectively the equivalent of opening up a command prompt. Any command typed into IE will behave as if you typed it into a command prompt and will execute with whatever privileges you have. For most users, this will be Administrator. Another brilliant design choice.
G
Re:Compare Also (Score:3, Informative)
Nowhere near the (28% + 3% + 13%) = 44% for MSIE6, of course, but 24% is still pretty high.
Comparing Criticality, FF has 23% "Highly Critical" whilst IE has 14% Extremely Critical + 29% Highly Critical = 43%. That really is bad for IE.
Of course, numbers prove very little, and there's lots of room for reinterpreting these figures (availability of FF source can make vulns easier to find and exploits easier to write; huge IE install base increases
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:3, Interesting)
How bout this one?
A vulnerability has been identified in a Microsoft ActiveX plugin called MCIWNDX.OCX, which possibly allows malicious HTML documents to execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable system.
The problem is that a property called "Filename" isn't properly verified allowing malicious websites or HTML emails to cause a buffer overflow by supplying an overly long string. This could potentially be exploited to execute arbitrary code on the system.
unpatched since: 2003-08-14
Granted, thats only a
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:5, Funny)
ActiveX?
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:3, Informative)
I'd say a fundamental part of good practice with IE is to use it with an HTML rewriter. I use "The Proxomitron".
Proximo-what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not all vulnerabilities are created equal. As you assert, there doesn't seem to be (m)any people actually getting their system compromised from Firefox issues. Contrast that with IE, where we have seen numerous exploits in the wild which install malware, simply from the user visiting a web site. In large part, I believe this is due to IE's integration with the base operating systm.
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:5, Informative)
You need only to look at secunia.com's summaries to see through the idiocy of this article:
vs.
Firefox: 0% Extremely Critical
IE: 14% Extremley Critical
Need we say more?
Re: Is the Firefox Honemoon Over? (Score:3, Interesting)
The coding standards and testing proceedures of the project/programmers matters also. I just switched from Netscape 7 to Moz 1.7.11 and found an annoying (non-security related) bug in Moz. Looked it up in Moz's bugzilla and found it had been a problem in 1.4, patches submitted, and it was marked "fixed." And yet, 3 versions later I've found exactly the same bug. Whatever testing proceedures Mozil
Quality not Quantity (Score:5, Insightful)
1) The number of vulnerabilities reported has almost nothing to do with the number in the code. At most it dictates a minimum number that exist. Perhaps the firefox community is much more active at searching for bugs in the much newer firefox code.
3) How effective are the fixes? MS seems to have the same recurring problems because they only do triage. They don't fix the bigger problem (VERY poor browser design). The firefox team appears to address the bigger problem, not just stop the current bleeding.
2) How critical are these vulnerabilities. The article makes no mention of any ranking. He lumps everything into the same category. MANY of the IE bugs over the last 5 years have been SUPER critical, allowing remote access with little or no user intervention and no settings work around. Are the fire fox bugs the same?
3) Different organizations handle the vulnerabilities: MS and the Mozilla Foundation. MS is known to sit on bugs as long as possible. Perhaps the Firefox team is just being more responsive to the people looking for them.
Remember 99% of people that have cancer have eaten pickles. That doesn't tell you squat about the relationship of pickles and cancer.
IAAITG (I am a IT guy)
Re:Quality not Quantity (Score:4, Insightful)
4) How many unfixed vulnerabilities are there. The one that comes to mind is ActiveX
Re:Quality not Quantity (Score:5, Funny)
It's a significant point of weakness...
ActiveX is the screen door on the Internet Explorer Submarine.
Firefox's facade is still looking pretty good (Score:5, Insightful)
They should have separated vulnerabilities into classes then also taken into account the average time between discovery and fix and ease of patching. Anyone one of such a study?
Causality vs. Correlation (Score:5, Insightful)
AMEN! Your pickles example is a good reminder of the confusion many Americans have over causality vs. correlation.
Damned Lies and Statistics by Joel Best is an excellent primer in the dangers of poorly used and cited statistics. It's a must read:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/052
Re:Quality not Quantity (Score:5, Funny)
Great, another apologist for the pickle manufacturers...
Re:Quality not Quantity (Score:3, Insightful)
And perhaps not.
And perhaps MS IE is exposed to more scrutiny because it's #1 browser? And perhaps not.
As we can't tell for sure, it's best to ignore such speculations.
>3 (sic)) How effective are the fixes? MS seems to have the same recurring problems because they only do triage. They don't fix the bigger problem (VERY poor browser design). The firefox team appears to address the bigger problem, not
Re:Quality not Quantity (Score:4, Informative)
There are a couple reasons for this. First, that patch was easy to make and test, and could be pushed out in, if my research is right, exactly 6 hours from the time it was on Full Disclosure to the time the patch was publicly available. The actual patch needed more than six hours to be made, tested, etc.
Also, several other security fixes are being put in to 1.0.7, which will be the patch for this.
Re:Quality not Quantity (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Quality not Quantity (Score:3, Insightful)
I still use firefox of course!
Re:Quality not Quantity (Score:5, Informative)
For Mozilla [secunia.com], there has been 0% of extremely critical vulnerabilities and 23% of highly critical in 2003-2005, whereas for IE [secunia.com] 14% were extremely critical and 29% highly critical in the same time period.
Furthermore, a total of 31% (out of of 69 advisories, or 21 individual cases) of IE vulnerabilities may result in system access. In Mozilla, the corresponding numbers are 18% and 4 advisories.
Re:No Software is Perfect (Score:5, Funny)
I set my Firefox home page to open MSN search with the default search strings "openoffice.org google 'how do I replace microsoft windows with linux?'".
It's the little things that make life enjoyable.
Re:No Software is Perfect (Score:5, Insightful)
annoying as it may be, it's still less annoying than the alternative
Re:rebuttal (Score:3, Funny)
Baldrick : Oh sir, you're not going to become a highwayman, are you?
Blackadder : No I'm auditioning for the part of Arnold the bat in Sheridon's new comedy.
Baldrick : Oh that's alright then.
Blackadder : Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?
Baldrick : Yeah! It's like goldy and bronzy, only it's made of iron.
Apples to Apples (Score:5, Insightful)
As well, how many of these vulnerabilities/exploits were "critical" and how severely did they expose your computer to running unauthorized code vs. the MS ones? How much effort did it take to repair them? The last vulnerability I recall patching required making a minor change to my Firefox config by hand rather than patching or upgrading.
Because IE is so tied in not only to the OS, but to various Visual Studio API's, were Microsoft's vulnerabilities more far-reaching?
I'm no MS apologist, but I'm also not a Linux or OSS zealot. I like to use what works best for my needs and habits, which ends up being a mix of Closed Source and Open Source products. I don't want to be biased on one side or another, but I'd like to be sure that comparisons like this are apples to apples.
- Greg
Re:Apples to Apples (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, many of the common extensions (Adblock & Noscript, for instance) block potential Firefox vulnerabilities.
I have run into the situation where I go to a "FF exploit proof of concept" page and the exploit doesn't work because Adblock blocks it.
Hey! (Score:3, Funny)
Security isn't the only reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Security isn't the only reason (Score:3, Interesting)
Slash Troll Alert (Score:5, Insightful)
These numbers (Score:4, Insightful)
What happens when IE Vista goes mainstream? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What happens when IE Vista goes mainstream? (Score:3, Funny)
Choice... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the Firefox web browser sucks, the average Joe can uninstall that web browser from a Windows box....
if IE sucks...
Short and simple (Score:5, Insightful)
2. How fast where patches/new versions deployed
3. How many days was the browser open to the exploit
And Finally
4. Total number of days browser was exploitable - IE vs Firefox
I bet you will find issues in IE that are not even patched yet, turnaround for more Firefox issues however? In most cases a solution within hours a patch within days.
misleading (Score:3, Informative)
Also, the number of security flaws reported is meaningless. A security hole could be very serious, or completely inconsequential.
And by the way, the article is extremely short, and doesn't actually give much useful info beyond what was in the slashdot summary, so please think twice before clicking through to TFA and steering ad revenue to zdnet.
How do I moderate the Orignial Poster (-5 Troll) (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems to me... (Score:2, Interesting)
The honeymoon IS over (Score:5, Funny)
What about the time to fix? (Score:2, Insightful)
Open source vs closed source (Score:2)
With general software development practices as well as because of other things, both open and closed source software will have securtiy issues.
But the probability of finding them in open source software is much greater because you have access to the source. It does not mean that open source software may have more bugs.
With the benifit of having the source code, its more likely that it will be found and fixed before an exploit is develop
Expliot to Patch Time (Score:2)
Secondly, Firefox's exploit to patch time is
More flaws? (Score:2)
I don't know if that really would make much of a difference, but then again, we can't really know for sure since the IE source code isn't available to make it a fair test.
Anyone out there who does seek out flaws care to shed some insight on how you go about doing it? I imagine some is like with old school video game
Losing my mod points to say this but... (Score:3, Interesting)
J.
Re:Losing my mod points to say this but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Really; are you in imminent danger of being modded down on Slashdot because you posted something negative about Microsoft and positive about Firefox?
Are you also worried about being flamed because you compress your music with ogg?
Do you live in fear of being outed to the slashdot community for creating documents in Open Office?
You're such a rebel.
[smile]
Re:Losing my mod points to say this but... (Score:3, Insightful)
J.
Usability. (Score:5, Interesting)
1. There is no reason a browser should lock your operating system.
2. There is no reason a browser should mysteriously slow down your computer.
3. There is no reason a browser should purposefully make it difficult to change some settings.
It's like the Messenger service that Microsoft seems DETERMINED to re-enable on my computer every time I update / patch. I know what settings I want, and the browser that lets me use those settings with a minimum of issues is the one I'll use. This isn't loyalty. It's a user-friendly program that doesn't pretend to believe it knows what I want better than I do.
Re:Usability. (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? Firefox dramatically slows the de-hibernation procedure in my laptop if I happened to access the CNN page before sometime before hibernating.
a good sign.. (Score:2)
Kick ass! (Score:2)
huge differences (Score:2)
misleading (Score:3, Insightful)
Strange... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, is Firefox more secure? In theory it should be. Are the exploits in Firefox less problematic? Well, until hackers care to exploit it, who the heck really knows? I remember when Firefox pop-up blocking worked. Now, there are known methods to circumvent the technology...go figure...the folks who care have found new methods because Firefox was eating their lunch.
Now, I heard someone say that Apache is a model...what about all those worms that have been attacking, and defeating, Apache for the last 3 years (slapper, scalper, etc.)? Apache's only grace is that the developers move FAST when a new exploit is found. However, most attacks are not day zero attacks, which means that the vast majority of attacks are based on known, patched or patchable flaws.
So, it is incumbent on any admin to keep their systems up-to-date AND recognize that patch management is one of the key hallmarks of a secure system.
What does this mean for Firefox? Same patch management must be implemented for Firefox as should be in place for Exploder. Moreover, perimeter firewalls and intrusion detection systems must be in place and up-to-date themselves. And even with this diligence, per the CSI FBI Computer Crime & Security Survey 2005, 95% of Enterprises experienced system penetration and 55% were attacked by worms or viri.
Guess what? Software development methodology is not a panacea anymore than anything else.
Diligence, not arrogance, will protect your computing assets.
Yeah? And how many of those are still unpatched? (Score:3, Interesting)
The most important thing this author should have asked is: what is the severity of these vulnerabilities? Something like a DoS is a PITA, but compared to a vulerability that opens a machine to remote system access-- come on! Let's compare: IE [secunia.com] Firefox [secunia.com]
IE integrated into the base OS gives a lot of those buffer overflows much more destructive potential than some regular old program. I'm not ruling FF out as a potential threat, but so far, it has shown itself to be far less dangerous than IE.
Users or Superusers?? (Score:3, Informative)
As a developer, I have found Firefox to be almost unusable in many instances:
1) They implemented CSS, but none of the old CSS. This means when you change a cursor to a "hand", it won't recognize it.
2) It also leaves you unable to create custom variables in HTML tags. This leaves out ease of use in dynamic information systems.
3) You cannot call a style of an document object directly, you must first call the object, then on a seperate line, call that object's style you want. Just plain inefficient.
4) You cannot use span tags or div tags even remotely how you can in IE (and some cases even in Safari!).
5) They took out many Javascript functionalities because they simply couldn't implement them correctly. (.focus())!
In the end, it's frustrating that in Firefox you must deal with coding around what they left out, because it's more "secure", and as we now know, it's not even more secure! And thank you to Firefox for making me have to download a plug-in every time I want something to work like it should. It's just not what everyone seems to think it is. Is it just an excuse to name drop something new??
Re:Users or Superusers?? (Score:3, Insightful)
"From March 2005 to September 2005" (Score:3, Insightful)
I could go on with this, but for me, even these questions are more important, by a magnitude, than how many exploits were discovered.
Firefox is harder to manage than IE (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Firefox is harder to manage than IE (Score:3, Informative)
don't attribute your failings to the browser. just because you may not know a good way of managing updates doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Re:Firefox is harder to manage than IE (Score:5, Informative)
Well, as has been pointed out numerous times over the months, the first hit on Google for "Firefox MSI package" is:
http://msi-repository.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
Where you can get thunderbird and firefox MSI packages of the current stable release.
FoxNews called, they want your resume (Score:3, Funny)
Firefox ... is the popular Internet browser becoming a security nightmare for IT administrators
Not a statement of fact but by asking it as a question you give the meme credibility. Get those ad servers warmed up.As you can see, the facade that Firefox is the cure to the Internet Explorer security blues is quickly fading.
Really, need some straw?[statistics of vulnerabilities provided without context] ... It just goes to prove that any popular software worth hacking that has security vulnerabilities will eventually have to deal with live working exploits.
Oh, I see you are already building your straw man [wikipedia.org]. What was your point again... FF is no better than IE so don't bother trying to use it? Nice. Not sure which is worse, the the zdnet Microsoft shill or this poseur inciting a flame war to embiggen ad server revenues. Bravo, your internship at FoxNews is waiting.Looking at the wrong statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
What can I say? I pity the administrator that need "proof" to realize this.
Straight to the "Security 101" class you go, as you should have before getting a job.
Or if not having one, thank god for that.
As you can see, the facade that Firefox is the cure to the Internet Explorer security blues is quickly fading.
Here's the hard facts according to Secunia...
IE 6: 19 of 85 unpatched issues, the most severe classed Highly Critical.
Firefox 1.x: 3 of 22 unpatched issues, the most severe classed Less Critical.
Opera 8.x: 0 of 7 unpatched issues.
I don't know about you, but as long as a product is auto-updating (which the Firefox 1.5 beta and onwards indeed is, like IE 6, and unlike Opera 8), what does it matter how many exploits are found? Isn't it how many issues you're affected by that matters?
Yes, this was a problem with Firefox before 1.5 as you can't excuse having to manually upgrade your browser while monitoring security sites (at least not from the audience Firefox is targeting), and that's why I recommend people to upgrade to 1.5 ASAP. The minor instabilities still present from being in beta isn't as bad as missing out security fixes.
Pffft.. (Score:4, Interesting)
IE6 has been out for 4 years and built on code that has been used for many years before that. With no significant features being added to IE6 and two major service packs it would seem that the software should be (at this time) very secure. Its still not.
Firefox has been out for less than a year. Given the age, it would stand to reason that it would have more bugs that need to be fixed. With time, it would be anticipated these will reduce.
Firefox has more features and higher degree of compatibility with standards -- I'd expect these would introduce bugs as well that need to be fixed.
Firefox does not have access to the resources Microsoft has (some of the best developers, huge amount of capital, sophisticated testing facilities and networks, etc..) and as a result, it would be expected there are more bugs, etc..
Firefox is available for a wider range of platforms. Given this variance, it would be anticipated more bugs would occur as a result.
The source to Firefox is freely available. As a result, it is very possible for a wider amount of people to look at the code and find bugs MUCH easier than with IE. As a result, more bugs should be reported.
I could go on and on and on.. but needless to say, the fact there are more security/bug reports shouldn't be that big of a surprise. The biggest question is if the fundamental architecture of the software keeps security issues minor and if the development team is capable of keeping their software secure in a quick and efficient manner.
I think it is pretty clear from looking at the links provided in the article that this indeed is the case. The vulnerabilities are far less critical, there are less outstanding issues, etc..
I'm curious how the picture will change a year or two down the road.. IE has been pretty consistent with security issues -- I really expect Firefox security issues to decline.
Red Herring Fish Sticks (Score:5, Insightful)
So they found more exploits to FF. FF is also newer. Does this mention the hundreds of IE exploits in the back catalog? Does this mention some of the fatal flaws that MS has not repaired since IE 5? I know because I have had to hack fixes for web apps in IE... never had to do it for Firefox. Read through MSDN and count all the bugs, then read through Bugzilla.
Any new product will have more flaws found per month than an existing product. This is common sense. The difference with FF is the turn around of the fixes. You could imply as much from the article. 40 down to 11. Notice how IE6 has the same amount still found (10 and 6 are alot closer than 40 and 11), and it is a product that has been on the market how long( 4 years [wikipedia.org])?
There is no news here, just FUD and a normal software lifecycle. This is perfectly normal.
Number of fixes not the same as error count (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember that Firefox has far more people looking at the code base for errors - so fixes generated are for problems people have seen in code that can cause an issue, even if in practice they might never be used for an exploit.
Meanwhile in IE you have fewer people just looking over the code for errors, so patches that come out are likley because someone, somewhere, is actually USING that hole right this second!!
Then look at the numbers for patches and see if using IE doesn't just creep you out in all sorts of ways.
MOD ARTICLE REDUNDANT! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd expect this kind of comments from a
In any case I already know the answer: "more bugs, but some less critical, and all patched in less time".
Or am I wrong?
Whaa...? (Score:3, Insightful)
links? (Score:3, Interesting)
misunderstood (Score:5, Insightful)
"the facade that Firefox is the cure to the Internet Explorer security blues [...]"
It's not a product specific issue. Diversity is the cure to monoculture security blues. The more mainstream a product becomes, the more malicious users will target it. And if it's the only game in town it might as well have a big bullseye pinned on it.
Something doesn't make sense (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no relationship between popularity and vulnerabilities in software. Period.
There may be a relationship between popularity and exploits in code (hackers targeting the biggest slice in the pie.) But this wasn't about exploits, it was about vulnerabilities.
More appropriately, there may be a relationship between the popularity of a codebase and the likelihood that any inherent vulnerabilities will be discovered. Whether this is good or bad for the users of the software depends entirely on whether any discovered vulnerabilities are fixed, or allowed to fester so that they can be exploited.
Author picked meaningless numbers... (Score:3, Informative)
Firefox is definitely losing some momentum (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the real test will be to see what happens when the new version of Internet Explorer comes out in a few months. Is that going to steal back some of the lost market share or will firefox out-innovate it?
Can you count to 10 ? (Score:5, Informative)
Only ten?? Guess it depends on where Internet Explorer ends and where the "operating system" begins. Many of the worst bugs haven't "officially" been MSIE bugs, but the result is that a malicious web page can take control of your system or do other things you'd never imagine it ought to be able to.
I did a quick search of the microsoft bulletins and found 13. And these aren't even exactly the same ones Secunia lists (two of which they say Microsoft hasn't even fixed).
And why from March? Look at what an ugly month February was for MSIE.
MS05-038 - aug 17 [microsoft.com]
JPEG Image Rendering Memory Corruption Vulnerability - CAN-2005-1988
Web Folder Behaviors Cross-Domain Vulnerability - CAN-2005-1989
COM Object Instantiation Memory Corruption Vulnerability - CAN-2005-1990
MS05-037 - jul 12 [microsoft.com]
JView Profiler Vulnerability - CAN-2005-2087
MS05-032 - jun 14 [microsoft.com]
Microsoft Agent Vulnerability - CAN-2005-1214
MS05-028 - jun 14 [microsoft.com]
Web Client Vulnerability - CAN-2005-1207
MS05-026 - jun 14 [microsoft.com]
HTML Help Vulnerability - CAN-2005-1208
MS05-025 - jun 14 [microsoft.com]
PNG Image Rendering Memory Corruption Vulnerability - CAN-2005-1211
XML Redirect Information Disclosure Vulnerability - CAN-2002-0648
MS05-024 - may 10 [microsoft.com]
Web View Script Injection Vulnerability - CAN-2005-1191
MS05-020 - april 12 [microsoft.com]
DHTML Object Memory Corruption Vulnerability - CAN-2005-0553
URL Parsing Memory Corruption Vulnerability - CAN-2005-0554
Content Advisor Memory Corruption Vulnerability - CAN-2005-0555
MS05-015 - feb 8 [microsoft.com]
Hyperlink Object Library Vulnerability - CAN-2005-0057
MS05-014 - feb 8 [microsoft.com]
Drag-and-Drop Vulnerability - CAN-2005-0053
URL Decoding Zone Spoofing Vulnerability - CAN-2005-0054
DHTML Method Heap Memory Corruption Vulnerability - CAN-2005-0055
Channel Definition Format (CDF) Cross Domain Vulnerability - CAN-2005-0056
MS05-013 - feb 8 [microsoft.com]
DHTML Editing Component ActiveX Control Cross Domain Vulnerability - CAN-2004-1319
MS05-009 - feb 8 [microsoft.com]
(PNG buffer overflow, may not affect IE, remote code execution in MSN, WMP, etc)
MS05-008 - feb 8 [microsoft.com]
Drag-and-Drop Vulnerability - CAN-2005-0053 (yes, exploitable via web page)
MS05-006 - feb 8 [microsoft.com]
Cross-site Scripting and Spoofing Vulnerability - CAN-2005-0049
Difference in "Vulnerabilities" (Score:4, Interesting)
Browser A has a vulnerability, it opens access to a virus or spyware to enter your computer and get all your information while selling your children into slavery.
Browser B has a vulnerability that hides the true url you're looking at, but makes it look funky as hell.
Browser A get an update 6 months down the road that fixes this problem.
Browser B is fixed by an immediate change to the configuration, and an updated version is issued disabling that featureset. Then, shortly after, another new version is available, with that featureset back on.
These are hypothetical, IE doesn't really sell your children into slavery. =) And I doubt my FF history is correct. But what's worse? A problem where your car explodes when driving down the "wrong street" or your seatbelt being a little sticky? Both count as 1 problem, and thus looking at numbers becomes flawed.
Firefox finds the problems and tries to fix them asap, with 1.5 it has automatic updates and binary patching, hell yeah. IE has delayed some problems until IE7, period. FF is actively finding and fixing probs, IE fixes major ones and pushes others to the back of the line.
And that UI guy was right, Security doesn't interest non-programmers really. It's something to consider, especially in business/corporate enviroments, but "by the numbers" is really just asking to get yourself screwed.
meh, get it right (Score:5, Informative)
Thats a true-er representation of security.
Mozilla usually patch flaws fairly quickly - there's flaws in IE that have been known for *years* before they were patched, if at all.
smash.
let's see... (Score:3, Insightful)
[Insert usual mantra of anyone being able to fix F/OSS but only MS being able to fix MSIE here] [Append snide remark about companies trying to hide rather than fix vulnerabilities here] [Insert random Zeeky Boogy Doog here]
Doesn't this happen every couple months? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not going to reiterate the truth of the matter, because if you don't know it by now, you are probably one of the few who don't WANT to know.
Karma Whoring (Score:2, Funny)
Re:FUD (Score:5, Funny)
It's still more secure than IE.
You make a powerful argument. I'm daunted at the prospect of countering it. I think I'll back down in the face of your intellectual prowess.
Re:haha Bitches (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Open Source Security (Score:3, Insightful)
They have been at it over ten years, and still new bugs keep coming. With more cash than some countries, there is no excuse for any new exploits by your logic.
1) Firefox is newer, it's code is less mature.
2) The entire world is privy to the source code of Firefox, the more exploits initially is good for open source. That means their getting fixed faster too.
3) What these 'known exploits' a