And yet, to make that fortress useful to us we demand that holes be chopped through the walls to permit us to run a Web browser. We complain if that browser is not given enough access to the rest of the computer. We insist on ease of use and speed, even if it makes all of our other defenses meaningless. And in many cases, we use browsers downloaded from the Internet without precaution, and configured by the owner of the desktop who has no security training or interest.

Browsers are at the heart of the Internet experience, and as such they are also at the heart of many of the security problems that plague users and developers alike.

Web page. It is a powerful tool, but one that is open to a number of attacks. ²

Flash, JavaScript, and Java all allow programs written by unknown third parties to run within the browser. Yes, there are sandboxes and safeguards, but as any attacker will tell you, a big step toward penetration is getting the target machine to run your code.

 

the use model is evolving…

Key features of early browsers included encryption and cookies, which were fine for the simple uses of the day. These techniques enabled the start of e-commerce, and monetizing the Web was what brought in the rest of the problems. Attackers who want money go where the money is, and there is money to be had on the Web.

Today, users expect far more from a browser. It should be able to handle sophisticated banking and shopping systems, display a wide variety of media,

including video, audio, and animation, interact with the network on a micro scale (such as what happens when you move the cursor over a DVD selection in Netflix and see a summary of the movie), and update in as close to real time as possible—all without divulging sensitive information to bad guys or opening the door for attackers.

Consider AJAX, also known as Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. A Web page can contain code that establishes a network connection back to a server and conducts a conversation with that server that might bypass any number of security mechanisms integrated into the browser. The growing popularity of AJAX as a user-interface technique means an enterprise network often allows these connections, so that popular sites can function correctly.

The underlying mechanism of AJAX (which, despite the name, may not necessarily use JavaScript, XML, or be Asynchronous), is a function called XMLHttpRequest, originally introduced

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by Microsoft for Internet Explorer, but now supported by Firefox, Safari, Opera and others. XMLHttpRequest allows a part of a Web page to make what is effectively a remote procedure call to a server across the Internet and use the results of that call in the context of the

…and So is the threat model

Early browsers had several major and noteworthy vulnerabilities, but they also had fewer types of attackers. The early attackers tended to be motivated by curiosity or scoring points with their peer groups. Modern browsers must defend against increasingly well-organized criminals who are looking for ways to turn browser vulnerabilities into money. They are aggressive, methodical, and willing to try a variety of attacks to see what works. And then there are those who work in gray areas, not quite violating the law, but pushing the envelope as much as possible to make a few dollars.

With more aggressive threats come more aggressive defenders. Security experts wanting to make names for themselves can release vulnerability information about browsers faster than browser developers may be prepared to react. While the roots of this type of disclosure

 

Security Risks Visualized malwarez is a series of visualization of worms, viruses, trojans, and spyware code by alex Dragulescu. for each piece of disassembled code, aPi calls, memory addresses, and subroutines are tracked and analyzed. their frequency, density, and grouping are mapped to the inputs of an algorithm that grows a virtual 3D entity. http://www.sq.ro/malwarez.php

IRCbot

Tro jan Agent.IL PWSLineage: this trojan steals the account information for the game called “Lineage ii” from the victim’s machine. there are several variants of the trojan.