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Web Browser Security
Important! Web Browser Security Scan all URL's (web links) Before Clicking Them!
Malicious sites or links & e-mail based URL are often obfuscating the real URL destination...
To work around this, You need to look in the "URL display area" This area is located at the extreme lower left at the bottom of the web browser. To reveal the link's (URL) real destination address simply hover the cursor directly above the URL
Where the actual URL links goes here: http://www.us-cert.gov/reading_room/securing_browser/ Instead of what is displayed...
If you find a discrepancy as in the example above you may be well advised to scan the link prior to clicking on it with LinkScannerPro and attempt to detect for Possible Exploits or hostile scripts located on the site...
For an even more secure browsing experience, install the Free WOT (Web of Trust)
in your web browser, and be safe!
We highly Recommend WOT, will Warn you about, and block known hack sites, Fraudulent operations, or child unsafe locations as well as provide you with an opportunity to rate sites as well...
updated on 26 April 2009 The Internet is powerful but using it mindlessly is risky. As a result, I can not recall ever working on a system that was not infected with some type of Virus, Trojan or Spyware. Most have hacks and some are under complete control by hackers. This even though they usually have a commercial and often a top Brand anti virus and an anti Spyware software as well...
Funny thing is, most users almost always are in some type of denial about their own personal security risks or are totally oblivious to how many bots are actually active on the system. Not to mention the spam or Trojans, and other types of Malware their PC is often very busy distributing around the net!
How is that possible?
Web sites these days are no longer the safe heaven we once innocently enjoyed. There are hackers who are quite adept at web design, and who use many simple but highly effective social engineering tactics such as described in my opening to this article, or they are exploiting these skills to inject hostile code into business web sites who then inject the hacks into any computer that happen to visit by.
Yes... Probably Yours too!
Also you do not need to visit porn sites or Warez sites to be infected these days either. Just do a Google or Yahoo search, and analyze the URL returned by the results with LinkscannerPro or some other similar tools, and you will be surprised by just how many are trying to infect you with hacks or exploits, and or tying to convince you to download a Trojan posing as "New Video or Sound Codec" or trying to install software to capture your keystrokes as you input passwords into secured sites.
Not to mention the large variety of software that allows one to view someone else's computer screen in real time while undetected. Often these infection are engineered, and sold by clever businesses claiming to help one find cheating spouses or to watch over the online activity of misbehaving employees. Resulting in the Breaching of everyone's privacy...
This all sounds alarming, but one can not underplay this reality in good conscience. However there is hope, and many effective tools are available to fight against these problems.
My Advice: In Windows, create a "New" user account with limited user rights (Do not use an Administrative account) for simple web browsing since given the possibility of an exploit, it would grant the exploit "God" mode on your PC, and trouble could quickly develop...
Also"ARM and Harden" your system.
You can begin by using Firefox with a good password manager such as Roboform and a few other powerful add-on to enhance Firefox's already good security...
Equip your Firefox web browser with the Free NoScript add-on. It will provide much increase in the control you will gain over the content processed by your web browser, within the sites you visit. This is effective since most hacks, and exploits are injected into your computer via your web browser using embedded scripts installed on the sites we all visit. Having the ability to selectively allow or deny scripts to run on any given web site is incredibly empowering from a security perspective...
Many cyber criminals develop sophisticated hack sites, and pay unsuspecting web site owners or use search engines to host ads leading to these sites, and to sites infected with exploits. Also many hacks these days are located on often poorly administered but legit business sites easily compromised by hackers as companies cut down IT services, and outsource to reduce expenses.
Fortunately several good, and Free Browser based link scanners are available to help defend against this. My personal favorite isWOT(Web of Trust) a free Internet security add-on for your browser. It will keep you safe from online scams, identity theft, spyware, spam, viruses and unreliable shopping sites. WOT warns you before you interact with a risky website. It's easy and it's free. It also provides every users the ability to include their own input on every sites visited. Very nice tool.
Also McAfee SiteAdvisor & Linkscanner Pro both work as an early warning system against many of those nasty sites, and will also block access to the ones with known hacks or hostile scripts. Browser Defender is also currently under development and looks promising.
Using the tools mentioned above you should always Scan URL links to all web sites, and not only those you do not recognize before you click them to inspect them for exploits. Be most specially careful when doing Yahoo or Google searches, since many of the returned results look safe but are in fact often links to sites designed with a hack for the sole purpose of infecting unprotected visitors.
Another powerful method to protect against online infections is to run all your web activity within a virtual Sandbox as this will contain any unwanted changes or infections within the sandbox, and allow all changes made by Malware to be fully undone at will. We Recommend Sandboxie a free yet powerful, and easy to use sandbox.
Install a good keylogger Scrambler, as it will help prevent hackers getting your passwords using sophisticated keyloggers . We currently recommend KeyScrambler Personal it is Free, a simple yet powerful Key logger scrambler protection that works with your web browser.
Probably the best advice and easily the most important. Keep patching your system, and not only the operating system but all your applications as well. a good article is available here:
Also noteworthy: The best protocol is to use all the tools proposed on this page. Also all the tools mentioned above actually play nice with each other and with your existing security tools. So you can use them without worry...
Although what I wrote above is good advice it is by no means a complete explanation of what the best "over all" you can do to secure the whole system against intrusions. for more "thorough information on how to lock down tight read our Cyber Self Defense article.
By implementing these simple tactics you will be safer than most web users, as over 90% of the Internet population have no idea how to effectively defend themselves against the ever increasing number, and types of attack vectors, resulting in substantially increased risks for the rest of us.
Besides these tools actually do work, and are mostly Free.
If you need assistance in implementing these please call me:
or
Toll Free Canada & U.S.A.
1-866-204-4567
416-535-7396
Toronto & surrounding areas
All tools recommended in this article are available here:
ThreatFire uses advanced patent-pending technology to detect signs of malicious behavior commonly used by malware threats. ThreatFire is unlike traditional antivirus products that rely on old fashioned "signature" technology and require updating every time a new threat occurs.
By constantly monitoring the activity on your PC ThreatFire’s ActiveDefense technology is able to hunt down and paralyze threats that are too new or too clever to be recognized by traditional security software.
ThreatFire employs an intelligent behavioral engine to only alert you on truly malicious behavior, because sometimes even legitimate software may look malicious. This means you are only alerted when you really need to be.
The award-winning Web browser is now faster, more secure, and fully customizable to your online life. With Firefox 3, we’ve added powerful new features that make your online experience even better.
There's a Browser Safer than Firefox... ...it is Firefox, with NoScript!
The NoScript Firefox extension provides extra protection for Firefox, Flock, Seamonkey and others mozilla-based browsers: this free, open source add-on allows JavaScript and Java execution only for trusted domains of your choice (e.g. your home-banking web site). NoScript optionally blocks Flash and other potentially exploitable plugins too, and provides the most powerful Anti-XSS protection available in a browser.
NoScript's unique whitelist based pre-emptive script blocking approach prevents exploitation of security vulnerabilities (known and even not known yet!) with no loss of functionality...
- Protects your logins on all websites. - Is absolutely free.
How does KeyScrambler defeat keyloggers?
KeyScrambler defeats keyloggers by encrypting your keystrokes at the keyboard driver level, deep within the operating system. When the encrypted keystrokes reach your browser, KeyScrambler then decrypts them so you see exactly the keys you've typed. Keyloggers can only record the encrypted keys, which are completely indecipherable.
Avoid poisoned sites when you're searching the Web
LinkScanner Lite integrates with major search engines to check search results for a variety of online threats before you click. When you search with LinkScanner Lite on guard, you get advance warning of:
You should always scan the URL's (Web Links) and upload executables from here. You may get false positives and hostile sites may pass the scans, but while there is no guarantee with the results it still provides an awesome resource that wold not be available otherwise!
How much do you know about your web browser connection? I would bet not much! Most users are simply blind when it comes to browsing the internet as they are completely unaware of what the servers on the other end of the connection actually see when they visit.
Ok... So you found some bad links trying to post some sort exploit or trying to inject a hostile activeX or Trojan on your computer. Now what? First you can scan for information about the site here:
Browse the Web Safely!
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Application Vulnerability Audit
Important Perform Applications Vulnerability Assessment
Most computer systems have many programs with exploitable vulnerabilities installed...
Get the Insecure or End of Life Application programs, patched before they can be exploited by the bad guys...
