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It is important to understand the functionality and features of the web browser we use. Do you know that? Enabling some web browser features may lower security. Users often enables features by default to improve the computing experience, but these features may end up increasing the risks to one's computer.
Attackers focus on exploiting one's computer through various vulnerabilities. They use these weakness to take control of your computer, destroy your files, steal your information and uses your computer to attack other's computer. How can an attacker do it? A low-cost way is by exploiting vulnerabilities in web browsers. They can create a malicious website that will install Trojan software or spyware that will steal your information. Rather than actively attacking vulnerable systems, a malicious website can attacks system when the site is visited. A malicious HTML document also can be emailed to victims. Therefore, the act of opening the email and its content can be compromising to our system.
So, lets understand more about what different features will help you to understand how they affect your web browser's functionality and security of your computer.
- ActiveX is a technology used by IE on Microsoft Windows systems. It allows applications to be utilized by the browser. A website can use ActiveX component that already exists in the system or users may download it. This gives extra functionality to traditional web browser but may also bring in more severe vulnerabilities if it is not implemented properly. ActiveX has been bringing problems with various implementation and vulnerabilities issues. For instace, it can increase the attack surface or the 'attackability'of the system. Vulnerabilities in ActiveX objects may be exploited via the IE, even the object was never designed to be used in a web browser.
- Plug-ins are applications to be used in the web browser. Plug-ins are similar to ActiveX controls but it could not be executed outside a web browser. Adobe Flash is an example of a plug-in. Netscape firstly introduced the NPAPI standard for developing plug-ins but it was then implemented by other browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Mac Safari. Plug-ins may contain design flaws such as cross-domain violations which arise when the same original policy is not followed. Most browsers use security models to prevent scripts in a website from accessing data in a different domain. Vulnerabilities that violate these security models can be used to perform actions that a site could not normally perform.
- Cookies are files placed on your system to store data for specific websites. It may contain any information about the sites you had visited or may even contained credentials for accessing these websites. Cookies are designed to readable only by the website that created the cookie. Cookies can be used to uniquely identify visitors of a web site which some people considered it as violation of privacy. if a website uses cookie for verification, then an attacked may be able to acquire unauthorized access to that site just by obtaining the cookie.
There are other features and risks of web browsers besides these few stated above. Explore more and get-to-know about them. Hopefully you had a little more extra understanding on the different features and risks that you and your computer can possibly encounter.
Thank You.
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