There's a reason no one with the slightest tech inclination uses Internet Explorer anymore.
Not only is Microsoft's old browser slow and outdated, it's also incredibly insecure. But it turns out you don't even need to use it for it to compromise your data to hackers.
Cybersecurity researcher John Page has just published a report revealing an unpatched exploit in the way Internet Explorer handles MHT files, the browser's web archive format. Using this, hackers can access your IE browser to both spy on your system as well as steal your local data.
Even worse, Windows uses Internet explorer to open MHT files by default. That means you don;t even need to be using the browser, you just need to click on the email or chat attachment with the file to open it. And this exploit can affect WIndows 7, WIndows 10, and Windows Server 2012 R2.
The problem is, Page informed Microsoft of the exploit but they reportedly decline to release an emergency fix for it. Shortly after, he published documentation of the flaw, meaning it's no public knowledge. Microsoft has since said it will "consider" a fix in a future release, meaning it may or may not decide to patch the flaw at all.
And until then, it leaves millions of people with IE on their systems vulnerable to attack, at least until they disable the default option for how MHT files are opened.