Google Issues Microsoft IE Warning

03-15-2011 • Information Week

Activists using Microsoft Internet Explorer to access Google services are being targeted through an MHTML vulnerability. Google on Friday took the unusual step of issuing a security warning to users of Microsoft Internet Explorer. The company said that it has seen a significant number of targeted and apparently politically-motivated attacks directed at those accessing services at Google and at an unspecified popular social networking through Internet Explorer. "We believe activists may have been a specific target," Google's security team said in a blog post. Google declined to elaborate on which activists have been targeted or where the attacks have been coming from. Early last year, Google reported that it had been targeted by a sophisticated cyber attack from China and that the Gmail accounts of human rights activists had been a secondary target. The Gmail accounts of Vietnamese activists were also targeted last year.