Sunday, October 15th, 2006, 4:14 am
Browser Diversity and Security
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There has been a great deal of talk about browser statistics recently. Market share has become a measure of diversity, which ensures that Web developers tailor their site according to standards rather than for one particular application. Security remains at the heart of this debate, but it’s clear that the complexity of this problem is high.
All Web browsers are insecure to some degree, because they all must work with flawed code in the operating systems. There are some indications of progress, such as frequent patches from Microsoft and Mozilla to close security holes. Still, these actions may be too little too late if a zero-day exploit is the attack weapon.
It all comes down to patching speed, then number of flaws, as well as their severity (e.g. privilege escalation can be catastrophic).
Related article from the same day (and same Web site):
