Internet Explorer 6 was released almost nine years ago, back when Windows XP was still a fresh, young OS. However, like the operating system, many companies are still clinging to the ancient browser, despite numerous security concerns. Unfortunately the British Government can safely be added to its list of supporters, as a recent statement confirmed that public offices will not be upgrading any time soon.
There's a hole in my browser, dear Liza
The comments came in response to an online petition urging the UK Government to begin moving internal systems away from IE6. By the time it closed on June 6, the appeal managed to gather a total of 6,223 signatures. The original submission asked the Prime Minister to encourage public offices, as well as the general public, to upgrade from the outdated browser. According to the request, Germany and France have already begun taking these steps and the support of the British Government would aid global efforts to move away from IE6.
The response, though, wasn't particularly encouraging. An upgrade, even to the latest version of Internet Explorer, was claimed to be "a very large operation" that would "take months at significant potential cost to the taxpayer". As a result, it is currently deemed "more cost effective in many cases to continue to use IE6 and rely on other measures, such as firewalls and malware scanning software, to further protect public sector internet users".
Then patch it, dear David
To be honest, as disappointed as we are by this statement, we're not especially surprised. There are a huge number of computer systems across the public sector, and it would legitimately take a long time for all of those systems to be tested and patched up. Having said that, plugging a leak is rarely cheaper that fixing the problem in the long run - and Internet Explorer 6 is quite a leak.
Government computers undoubtedly hold a wealth of potentially sensitive information, and it is a little disconcerting to know that they are running such dated and potentially unsafe software. While no-one expects every update to be rolled out instantly, IE6 is practically from another era in technology life-cycles, in terms of both security and functionality.
Regardless, updates and support for IE6 will continue into 2014, when extended support for Windows XP SP3 finally ends. This should give the Government a few years worth of patches to get its act together. Let's just hope we're not still having this conversation in four years time.
