Take that same ActiveX control and expose it to the (hostile) global Internet, and it might become "unsafe", because people on the Internet can, and do, exploit buggy ActiveX controls.

This exploit takes advantage of ActiveX Controls, Microsoft’s technology for executing a program on the Web, and doesn’t appear to work with Internet Explorer 4.0.

Microsoft said in a blog post, “The previous default setting, ‘Prompt me before enabling all controls with minimal restrictions,’ allowed you to enable potentially dangerous ActiveX controls ...

Microsoft today announced an important Internet Explorer update that will block out-of-date ActiveX controls. It will be released along with the next Windows update and other security updates ...

Last month, Microsoft posted a security advisory that detailed "active, targeted attacks leveraging a potential vulnerability in the ActiveX control for the Snapshot Viewer for Microsoft Access ...

Microsoft's Internet Explorer has another gaping security hole, this time because of an ActiveX control with some bad code. Will the patch even stick? By Michelle Delio.

Microsoft announced that it will block older ActiveX controls in Internet Explorer, starting with Java.

Word processing component maker Text Control GmbH today announced the release of TX Text Control ActiveX 16.0. The updated ActiveX controls are part of a family of products focused on enabling the ...

By disabling Active Scripting and ActiveX controls on your computer, you may give up a little functionality--but you'll gain a lot more security. Let's look at how you can disable both.