Internet Explorer 9 utterly dominates malware-blocking stats
Internet Explorer 9's dual-pronged approach to blocking access to malicious URLs—SmartScreen Filter to block bad URLs, and Application Reputation to detect untrustworthy executables—provides the best socially engineered malware blocking …
Context & Ripple Effects
The security story of Internet Explorer has come full circle. Bruce Schneier's 2005 takedown of Internet Explorer's security record fixed the browser's reputation as the web's most dangerous default, and Microsoft has spent 2011 rebuilding it: the March review of Internet Explorer 9 framed it as the most modern browser Microsoft has shipped, January's RC added ActiveX filtering, and by May IE was the only browser untouched by a widespread memory-leak bug.
This new data completes that arc on the threat side: where IE once lost share over unpatched flaws, IE9 now leads on blocking attacks before they land, pairing SmartScreen Filter's malicious-URL checks with Application Reputation's screening of downloaded executables against socially engineered malware.
First-order effects
- IE9 users get measurably stronger protection against socially engineered malware than users of any competing browser, because both the malicious-link path and the malicious-download path are screened by default.
- Microsoft gains a defensible security talking point for Windows 7 upgrades at a moment when the rest of its 2011 coverage has been favorable on stability and features.
Second-order effects
- Rival browser makers face pressure to match the two-layer model — URL reputation plus executable reputation — or concede the enterprise and family-PC segments where 'which browser blocks malware' is a purchasing argument.
- Reputation data becomes a competitive asset in itself: whoever accumulates the largest corpus of rated URLs and binaries holds an advantage that late entrants cannot replicate quickly.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, browser security shifts from patching vulnerabilities after discovery to scoring links and downloads before execution, making the browser the de facto endpoint-defense layer and turning reputation infrastructure into a structural moat between incumbents and challengers.
The trend: Browser makers are repositioning from reactive vulnerability patching to proactive reputation-based malware blocking, with Microsoft's SmartScreen stack as the early benchmark.