Friday, June 13, 2008

Safari Carpet Bombing from the SANS OUCH Newsletter Volume 5, Number 6 June 2008 Serious vulnerabilities in Safari have spawned a troubling attitude from Apple about them. It has been known for years that the Safari browser does not warn users before downloading files to their system. It's a simple trick to get Safari to download a file to the user default file location with no user intervention or notice from the browser. For users who install the Windows version of the Safari browser, that default location is the desktop, so the attacker could fill up your desktop with unsolicited files. The next step is for the Bad Guys to load up your desktop with malware in files named "My Computer"-thus the name "Carpet Bombing" for the attack. On the Mac, the files end up in the Downloads folder. Apple has decided to treat this as a normal product enhancement request and not a security problem. More information: http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2008/05/safari_carpet_bombing.php http://www.dhanjani.com/archives/2008/05/safari_carpet_bomb.html 9:24:40 PM    comment []

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Anti-virus software isn't the only computer security tool ... get in the habit of quickly installing all software program updates ... beyond that also consider: Certified e-mail [?? Seems off the point since these services are directed at businesses not individuals] Web page scanners ... tools using varying technologies to gauge the reputation of most Web pages. EG AVG's LinkScanner, ScanSafe's Scandoo, Trend Micro's TrendProtect, McAfee's SiteAdvisor [which I use] and Finjan's SecureBrowsing grade Web pages as safe, unsafe or questionable. Browser security tools ... anti phishing filters [In other words a toolbox instead of a tool.] 9:37:58 PM    comment []

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Is the Best Browser For Web [According to Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal who has "...recently been testing a near-final version and comparing it closely to IE and to Safari." He rates Firefox 3.0 as "the best Web browser out there right now, and that it tops the current versions of both IE and Safari in features, speed and security." He cites easy of installation and ease of use, "even for a mainstream, non-technical user." While I have not yet used version 3 of Firefox (I will immediately as the final version is released), it is my default browser and I "fall back" to Internet Explorer only when forced to because of web site compatibility issues. Even then, most of the time I use the IETAB Fiefox addin.] 6:14:35 PM    comment []

Monday, June 09, 2008

Browser memory usage The good (Opera 9.27 and Firefox 3.0 RC2), the bad (Opera 9.50B2, Safari 3.1.1, and Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1), and the ugly (Internet Explorer 7). If [the tester: Adrian Kingsley-Hughes ] had listed the browsers in order of sluggishness when running with 30 tabs open, the order would be the same as for the memory usage, with IE7 being the most sluggish and Firefox 3.0 RC2 and Opera 9.27 being the most responsive. 5:24:27 PM    comment []