by hirantha
Thu, May 20 2010 20:05
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has published a paper on browsers being tracked by it's unique fingerprint. It turns out our browsers are more unique than we would like to think they are so it is possible for websites to track users around using the unique fingerprint. While it may not be possible to know the exact user's identity, tracking from one web location to another is definitely a possibility. User agent string, system fonts, screen resolutions and much more of the computer attributes all contributes to the unique fingerprint of computer + browser combination. Disabling Javascript and active contents help with this a little bit but you need to decide whether privacy is worth losing the ability to view the active content.
To test how unique your computer + browser combination, goto https://panopticlick.eff.org/ and click on the "Test Me" button.
Full paper can be found at https://panopticlick.eff.org/browser-uniqueness.pdf
by hirantha
Fri, March 12 2010 13:21
This Microsoft advisory outlines a vulnerability in Internet Explorer 6 and 7, which could allow remote code execution. While there are some mitigations available for IE7 (the Enhanced Security Mode) in Server 2003 and Server 2008, the best advice is to upgrade to Internet Explorer 8, which is not vulnerable.
Microsoft Security Advisory (981374)
by hirantha
Tue, November 24 2009 07:47
Microsoft has released Security Advisory 977981. It details vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer 6 and 7 on various operating systems. The advisory does not provide any patches or new versions at this point, but does provide several recommendations for mitigation.
by hirantha
Thu, June 18 2009 14:59
WOT stands for Web Of Trust, it is a community knowledge based system where information on websites are shared. After installing the add-on, the links from search engines are tagged with extra symbols showing whether the site's "reputation" level. Very simple to understand, red means potentially bad site and green means good site.
WOT is available for both Firefox and IE . If you choose to use it, remember to contribute back to the project back by helping to rate sites as you visit them.
