SAP Support for Internet Explorer 11 Can Head Off Security Woes

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The internet has been buzzing with news about the latest Microsoft Internet Explorer security hole, which was patched today (see Microsoft blog post, Out-of-Band Release to Address Microsoft Security Advisory 2963983). The bug affected multiple browser versions, from the obsolete Internet Explorer 6.0 to the latest Internet Explorer 11, causing even the United States government to recommend alternative browsers (see United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team note, Microsoft Internet Explorer Use-After-Free Vulnerability Guidance). Microsoft even took the extraordinary step of patching Windows XP, which is technically no longer under patch support.

Two years ago, SAP analytics customers couldn't move to the then-latest Internet Explorer 9.0 due to SAP's lack of support and compatibility issues. Nine months after IE9 was officially released, customers were still waiting for SAP to support it (see ASUG News article, Waiting on SAP, User Communities Fix SAP BusinessObjects Browser Woes).

Today, SAP delivers much more prompt platform support for browsers, databases, and operating systems. Support for Internet Explorer 11- which is Microsoft's latest browser for Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1- is already available in SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 Service Pack 7 (SP7) and higher, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence 4.0 Support Pack 9 (SP9) and higher, and SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence 4.1 Support Pack 3 (SP3) and higher. These versions also support Java 7, which is significant if your organization depends on Web Intelligence.

With this most recent security issue, even the latest Internet Explorer 11 was affected. But as a general rule, later browser versions have more security features than their predecessors, whether the vendor is Microsoft, Mozilla, Google or Apple. If your organization's security officers are leading the charge to move up from earlier browsers such as Internet Explorer 9, it's worth creating a project plan to patch up to these latest releases of the SAP business intelligence platform.