Web Browser Security Audit as of June 1, 2007

With the recent updates on the Firefox and Opera Web browsers, I wonder which among the popular browsers is the most secure. Secunia has a huge repository of security advisories on a variety of software and what better way to check on the vulnerabilities of Web browsers than to visit the Website? However, it would take me some time and effort to find those specific vulnerabilities considering that Secunia is a huge repository.

It’s a good thing that I found Stay Secure. It’s an Opera widget  created by grafio. With Stay Secure, I could easily identify the Web browser with the least security advisory and vice versa using Opera. I can also click on the icons so I could check what those vulnerabilities are on the Secunia Website. It’s quite a handy widget if one wants to be updated.

Anyway, here’s a brief summary of the security advisories of popular Web browsers as of June 1, 2007:

Internet Explorer 7 (Windows) - 10 vulnerabilities, 7 unpatched

Firefox 2.0.x - 9 vulnerabilities, 5 unpatched

Opera 9.x - 6 vulnerabilities, 0 unpatched

Safari 2.x (MacOS) - 6 vulnerabilities, 4 unpatched

Konqueror (Linux) - 11 vulnerabilities, 1 unpatched

While it is apparent that Internet Explorer is the most unpatched Web browser, it is also the browser with the most number of users (about 60% of the Web browser market share). Generally, we could say that Internet Explorer is the most popular Web browser, that’s why a large number of attacks is targeted towards it. Opera on the other hand, only has around 1% of the market share. Whatever the market share is, the immediate response of these companies and the way they implement patches is a reflection of how secure their browser is. (Related story: IE7 Update: Stagnant Market Share. Web Designers Not Surprised. For up-to-date stats on Web browser market share, visit W3Schools’ Browser Statistics page.

Web browsers are I think the most often used software in the world, so we should take the issue of browser security seriously. What do you do with all these gabs about Web browser security? Well, the message remains the same:

• Make it a habit to religiously update your Web browser.
• Visit Websites that present useful information. (Where did Cialis and Viagra referrals direct you anyway?)

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 2nd, 2007 at 13:14 and is filed under Security, Web News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.