‘IE was chink in Google armour’

If your PC runs Windows Vista or Windows 7, set it to ‘protected’ mode to avoid being snared by hackers. That’s the advice from Microsoft after Internet security firm McAfee Inc blamed flaws in the Internet Explorer browser for the recent cyber attacks on Google Inc and several other businesses.

If your PC runs Windows Vista or Windows 7, set it to ‘protected’ mode to avoid being snared by hackers.

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That’s the advice from Microsoft after Internet security firm McAfee Inc blamed flaws in the Internet Explorer browser for the recent cyber attacks on Google Inc and several other businesses.

McAfee said on Thursday that the hackers tricked employees of the companies into clicking on a link that downloaded malicious software onto their PCs through a campaign that the hackers apparently dubbed ‘Operation Aurora’.

“We have never seen attacks of this sophistication in the commercial space. We have previously only seen them in the government space,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, a vice-president of research with McAfee.

Microsoft has yet to patch the flaw in its browser, which is used on millions of PCs.