In a report that will surely start internet fires all over the world Secunia is reporting that Firefox is the most vulnerable web browser that is widely adopted on the market today.
"This year, Secunia published advisories for the four most widely used web browsers: Internet Explorer (IE), Safari, Opera, and Mozilla Firefox. 31 vulnerabilities were reported for Internet Explorer (IE 5.x, 6.x, and 7), including those publicly disclosed prior to vendor patch as well as those included in Microsoft Security Bulletins. Safari and Opera each had 32 and 30 vulnerabilities, whereas 115 vulnerabilities were registered for Firefox in 2008."
The vulnerabilities measures areas of a browser that requires a patch to fix a hole that could be exploited by a malicious user to take sensitive data from the end user.
It's an interesting contrast to the idea that people assumed that Firefox was the most web secure browser. According to this review Opera appears to be the safest but Microsoft and Apple's web browsers are not far behind.
Does this mean that you should switch your browser out of fear? Not so, the study does leave out the human element that the best defense is an educated user. If you are aware of what you are doing online and don't download bonzi buddy you are one step closer to a safer web experience.
Update: Mozilla have responded to the report and you can read their response here. Interestingly it appears Mozilla discloses all security issues whereas other vendors tend to keep them secret which would explain the big number differences.
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