Web Browsers, Watch Out!

WEB browser attack is one of the most common PC threats a home PC user faces, according to the Symantec Consumer Internet Security Threat Report Volume I (January-June 2006).

Symantec Corp’s senior director, consumer products and services, Asia- Pacific and Japan, David Freer highlights that close 70 per cent of all vulnerabilities documented by Symantec came from Web applications.

From January to June 2006, Mozilla browsers accounted for 47 vulnerabilities compared with 17 in the previous corresponding period. Vulnerabilities from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer increased to 38 from 25 while Apple’s Safari had 12 vulnerabilities compared with six the previous corresponding period.

“Most Internet-based activities that are accessed through a Web browser are not blocked by firewalls. As a result, attacks that travel over the Web are often not blocked by user’s firewall,” Freer says.

“Besides exploiting vulnerabilities to allow access into a victim’s PC, attackers use Web pages and other content that are viewed downloaded through a Web browser spread hidden malicious codes such as viruses, worms or Trojans that are placed onto user’s machine by exploiting programming flaws in the Web browser.”

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