'Extremely Critical' Flaws Found in Netscape Browser

This past week has been a tough one for Web browser security vulnerabilities. Today, security firm Secunia issued two "extremely critical" alerts about a pair of security holes in the Netscape Internet browser -- versions 7.2 and 6.2.3. See this page if you need help figuring out what version of Netscape you are using.

The vulnerability could allow attackers to execute malicious programs on your PC by getting your Netscape browser to display specially-crafted image files. There is no indication that hackers are actually using this flaw at the moment, which is a good thing, because Netscape hasn't released a patch to fix the problem yet.

One alternative would be to download the Firefox browser from Mozilla, which is based on an early Netscape browser. The same security flaw that Secunia issued its alert about today also bedeviled users of Firefox until Mozilla issued an update to fix the problem last week.