If you are still using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, chances are your computer is vulnerable to malicious attacks. This was the information found out by security researcher Manuel Caballero after examining the codes of Microsoft’s old browser.

While Microsoft has already released Microsoft Edge to replace Internet Explorer, there are users still working with the old browser. But what this independent security researcher found will make everyone who uses the old Microsoft browser think twice before using it again.

Mining digital currencies

According to Caballero, hackers can easily make Microsoft's Internet Explorer become bots because of the so-called zombie script bug, which, as he claimed, has been public and unpatched for months now.

With this bug left unchecked, hackers can drop malware and/or viruses which could enable them to penetrate the computer system itself via its ineffective browser. This leaves one’s personal files open to digital data mining.

The first signs that malware attacks are bring dropped are popup ads. Unfortunately, Internet Explorer’s popup blocker is completely broken, according to Caballero.

Mind reading, eh?

Another bug found on Internet Explorer allows any serious hacker to identify where the user is going, like mind reading, but it’s not.

According to Caballero, a script executed inside an object-HTML tag makes the location object “confused.” Instead of running the instruction, this “confusion” created by the bug will simply return the value of the main location.

In laymen's terms, whatever you type in the address bar of Internet Explorer can be viewed by the attacker.

In some ways, it could be compared to some aspects of the recently reported CCleaner malware. Here’s a video proving the said process exists:

Microsoft not dropping IE

So why doesn't Microsoft officially drop Internet Explorer since it already has a new internet browser? Caballero suggested that Microsoft may have been trying to get rid of the old browser.

However, as NetMarketShare.com revealed, Internet Explorer has a total desktop browser market share of 17.89% compared to Microsoft Edge’s 5.6%.

As posted by the tech website WCCFTech.com, here’s the response from Microsoft regarding the issue raised: “Windows has a customer commitment to investigate reported security issues, and proactively update impacted devices as soon as possible.”

Microsoft has also promised to release a security fix in its next update scheduled this Tuesday. However, it was not revealed whether the fix would include solving the bug on Internet Explorer.
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