One of several internet security newsletters I get featured this story of how an innocent seeming download turned out within seconds to be a
Security nightmare.
Anyone that downloads anything from the web (including web pages to be viewed like this one!) should take heed. There are many stories in the category of "Most Recent Horror Stories" at the C|Net site. I've read several accounts on various other sites as well, where merely clicking 'no' when prompted with the question, "Download now?", may actually trigger the download regardless of your selection. -- Perhaps, closing the browser window entirely may be safer in some cases.
There are increased warnings regarding potential for malignant and invasive
javascript worms. Possibly the only way to be immune is to disable javascript in all one's browsers, except perhaps tweaks permitted for trusted sites.
A lot of webpages are built with bells and whistles that use relatively innocent javascript, such as blogrolling tools which let you know when pages have updated to tools that figure out which browser you are using, in order to present that web page correctly.
Malware developments along these lines could get very interesting as more people may once again decide to turn off javascript. It wasn't long ago that we often disabled javascript because it didn't always work properly, and now, perhaps javascript is enabled so well, that it is just about the most unsafe way to surf. If disabled, elements of fancy web pages with javascript (including navigation) will not load and will need to be rewritten -- if plain text HTML links are not already included.
Related Links:
C|Net - Antivirus and Internet security informationAbout.com AntivirusF-Secure - News from the LabInformation Week - SecurityLabels: compu-internet
© 2006 
