Majority Of Web Browsers Are Unpatched

Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of security risk and compliance management provider Qualys, revealed that approximately 80% of web browsers are susceptible to exploits of bugs that have already been patched. Kandek attributed this mostly to Windows, saying “All the different patching mechanisms are confusing, a bit of this and some of that.”

As discovered by BrowserCheck (which scans Windows, Mac and Linux machines for vulnerable browsers along with browser plug-ins), Oracle’s Java was the most probable plug-in to be outdated for the second year in a row, comprising a total of 40% scanned systems. Adobe’s Reader and Apple’s QuickTime were second and third, taking up 32% and 25% respectively.

Proposed solutions include:

• Microsoft taking charge of patching crucial third party plug-ins via single updater.
• Moving to HTML5, so browsers would no longer require various audio and video processing plug-ins.