The Department of Health has told to dump the version 6 of the Microsoft Internet Explorer which was lesser in terms of security in comparison to its newer versions and to move on to the version 7 to all their NHS trusts that are currently using the Windows 2000 or XP as early as possible.

For those organizations that were going to continue to use IE6, they were intimated to apply a patch from Microsoft in order to update their security on all its computers that were affected and if that was not exactly possible, mitigation methods according to the vendors' suggestion should be applied.

Microsoft had actually reported a highly significant security problem in the middle of January with the IE6 which might even compromise the operating system of the computer. This provided a chance for the hackers to enter the network and steal highly confidential and sensitive information.

The IE6 is widely used in many places in the UK which also includes many of its government departments. Google is also stopping support of the browser in all its products and the search engine has suggested any other alternative browser instead.