Web Browser Vulnerabilities
Vulnerabilities in Web browsers were concentrated among four popular technologies -
Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Google Chrome, which is a new
addition to our trends report. The number of browser vulnerabilities in second half of
2009 comprised about eight percent of total Web vulnerabilities. Mozilla Firefox had the
largest vulnerabilities at 77 (comprising 44 percent of total browser vulnerabilities)
followed by Internet Explorer at 44, comprising 25 percent. However, based on feedback
from the last report, we decided to publish the number of patched vulnerabilities for each
browser type. Notably, Mozilla fixed most of its vulnerabilities with only 12 percent
unpatched where as IE still had 36 percent unpatched. Safari and Chrome had the same
number of vulnerabilities at 25 each (comprising 14 percent each) and Opera had only
three reported vulnerabilities – all three of these browsers had about 33 percent of their
vulnerabilities unpatched. So, Mozilla, clearly did a remarkable job in fixing most of their
vulnerabilities.
