40% Of Users Surfing Web With Insecure, Outdated Web Browsers

Boston (dbTechno) - A new study carried out by researchers has found that 40% of all computer users are surfing the Internet on an insecure and outdated version of their Web browser. This leaves them open to Web-based attacks.

Researchers used data collected from Google Web searches, as well as data from the security firm Secunia to come up with their figures.

They found that 637 million Web users are surfing the Internet with an outdated browser.

This could be the main reason for an increase in criminal hackers over recent years.

The data was collected in 2008 and found that 78% were Internet Explorer users. 16% used Firefox 3, 3% used Safari, and 0.8% users Opera.

Of those, 48% of the Internet Explorer users had an out of date version, compared to 8% for Firefox users, 30% for Apple users, and 10% for Opera users.

The study did not include thing such as add-ons to browsers which can also make them more open to attacks.