Firefox Buggier, But IE Takes 9 Times Longer to Patch

Browsers are the target of choice for hackers, Symantec said Monday in its bi-annual Internet threat report, which backed that up with data showing vulnerabilities for IE, Firefox, and Safari have increased in the last six months.

According to Symantec's Internet Security Threat Report, which was released Monday, 7 out of every 10 new vulnerabilities uncovered from January through June were bugs in Web applications. That's not good news, said Symantec, especially since the total number of vulnerabilities found in the six-month period hit 2,249, an 18 percent jump over the second half of 2005.

"The high number is due in part to the popularity of Web applications and to the relative ease of discovering vulnerabilities in Web applications compared to other platforms," went the report.