End of Support for Internet Explorer
As of June 15, 2022, Internet Explorer (IE) has officially ended support, according to researchers. This means that IE has been disabled in later versions of Windows 10 and all versions of Windows 11. However, disabled does not mean removed – remnants of IE still exist on modern Windows systems, although they are not accessible to the average user.
The IE components that remain in Windows continue to receive security updates, but the browser user interface cannot be easily opened. To address tasks that require IE compatibility, Microsoft has introduced IE mode for Edge. This feature mimics IE’s functions while operating within Microsoft Edge’s secure and modern security sandbox.
In a recent development, the technique of using mhtml: links to invoke the MHTML protocol handler was utilized in the exploitation of a vulnerability in Windows shortcut files. This method had previously been seen in the exploitation of a different vulnerability in 2021, known as CVE-2021-40444, where it was used in Word documents.
