Transcript Web Browser Security

Web Browser Security
Team iBrowse
Sha-Myra Richardson
John Darr
Why this is important:
People who use the internet use web
browsers.
Transfer personal information
Consumers make transactions through
web browsers in which sensitive
information is transferred.
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online shopping
online bill-pay
and other money transactions
Who can benefit:
Everyone
Almost everyone has used the internet for
exchanging money in some fashion. With this
research and hopefully web browsers becoming
more secure, people will not have to worry
whether their money is going to the right
person or if someone is on the other end taking
their identity.
Problems
Browser Attacks
• Man In the Middle
• Spoofing
• JavaScript/ActiveX malicious code
Research
Princeton University
• Conducted study on how people could
access users browser histories and go
through cookies (stored passwords,
account information, etc.)
• Most browsers fail to catch such attacks
sometimes even with the proper
software installed.
MIT
• Performed a study in which people would
have to detect spoofing
University of Pennsylvania
• Designed a “secure web browser,” which
was actually successful in protecting
against attacks.
Suggested Improvements
• The main thing that needs to be improved
the most is the user themselves. In the
study by MIT they noticed that:
“Users fail to continuously check the
browser’s security indicators, since
maintaining security is not the user’s
primary goal. Although users sometimes
noticed suspicious signs coming from the
indicators, they either did not know how to
interpret the signs or they explained them
away.”
• With this being said, there needs to be more
education so that whenever a user enters a
new webpage, they automatically think “is
this page secure?”. If the user goes into
each website with that mentality then they
will be much safer and have a much less
chance to be attacked.
Jennifer Kahng’s Study
Workload distribution
• Most of this project was spent
working together in the Woodward
335 lab.
Conclusion
• Web browsers are becoming more and
more secure. Also, there are more
downloads available to detect certain
attacks that you might face. Even though
they are becoming more secure, it is up
to the user to be sure that they are
secure from attacks and other predators.
Future Work
Since technology is ever-changing,
there may be no end-all problem
solution. The objective which
researchers have on the security of
web browsers is to continue to try
to fix current problems as well as
look out for those that are
developing.