Internet Explorer or PDF - Who is to blame?

In the whole of Google and China spat, there are two other players who took quiet a few blows. It's Microsoft and Adobe systems. when Google first reported about the Chinese intrusion into Google's servers, the blame was thrown on a vulnerable security hole in the PDF files. Researchers at VeriSign's iDefense hinted that
an infected PDF was sent over the mail and that was used as a route to hack the Google systems. However, Adobe insisted that the PDFs do not have any such vulnerability and it went on saying that Adobe is also a victim of the same attack. But, Security Analysts hit back saying that Chinese hackers attacked Adobe to understand more such loop-holes in the PDF and to exploit them in future attacks.

The blame on Adobe took a turn when McAfee released its investigative report which states that,the hackers used a vulnerability in Internet Explorer to intrude Google and other companies. The report also gave a clean chit to Adobe that PDFs were not used in the attack. On the other hand, Microsoft didn't deny the security hole and admitted that there is a weak link in IE. This admittance led Germany and France governments to warn their citizens on using internet Explorer. This came as a 'no-surprise' given the number of lawsuits that was ragged against Microsoft by the European Union.

Just when the blame lopsided on IE, India reported that it was also a victim of Chinese attack and it came in the form of a PDF attachment!

The takeaways are:

1. Malwares/Spywares comes as a document too and it need not be an .EXE file/links.
2. One more reason to use Firefox.