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SECURITY INSIGHTS ARTICLES |
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Fight the Battle of the Breach with Safe Searching and Surfing
There is no practical way that a CSO of a large enterprise can monitor the surfing habits of every single employee. Even if the CSO logged all of the URLs that employees have visited, it would be virtually impossible to stay on top of all the web sites that can put a company at risk. Search engines are great at finding sites, but they don't offer much help when it comes to filtering the good, the bad, and the ugly. And the bad can be downright dangerous. The simple act of surfing and searching on the Internet can open the door to data breaches with potentially devastating consequences. The web is a veritable minefield of threats that invade enterprise desktops to steal confidential personal and business information. And if you aren't a CSO, it doesn't mean you shouldn't care. Home users and parents face the same dilemma. All of us want to take advantage of the resources available on the web safely. But how do we do that without being able to check out the sites ahead of time?
New software and technology allow you to easily solve this problem. In this Technical Insight, we look at McAfee SiteAdvisor™ and how it works. The software was created by an inventive group of computer scientists who had a single-minded mission: to rate the entire web for safety. Currently, McAfee has tested more than 8 million domains that together account for more than 95 percent of the trafficked web. And SiteAdvisor's research is refreshed on an ongoing and regular basis. SiteAdvisor has also tested millions of unique downloads and provided unique email addresses on millions of registration forms.
How does it work? SiteAdvisor tests web sites by mimicking the ways real people interact with the Internet. Essentially, SiteAdvisor uses virtual computers to crawl the Internet and click "yes" to whatever they find. When SiteAdvisor encounters a program, for example, it downloads and installs the file, and then scans the test PC to see if the file infected it with spyware or a virus. Likewise, SiteAdvisor registers at sign-ups with one-time email addresses and then monitors these unique inboxes for spam. In addition to adware, spyware, viruses and email practices, SiteAdvisor tests for exploits, pop-ups, phishing sites, scams and so-called "bad-linkers"—sites that exist simply to funnel consumers to other risky web sites. SiteAdvisor's automated tests are augmented by feedback from individual users and site owners, plus analysis by McAfee staff.
After all the information is gathered, SiteAdvisor assesses the site and gives it a simple color-coded rating. Green indicates safety, Yellow means caution. And red is for risky. A red rating means a site has failed one or more of McAfee's tests for spam, scams, spyware, and exploits.
The basic version of SiteAdvisor is free. It is available as a plug-in for both Internet Explorer and Firefox. McAfee also offers SiteAdvisor Plus, an enhanced version of the tool that checks links in email and instant messages. SiteAdvisor Plus can work in a password-controlled "Protected Mode" which redirects users to a safe page if they are about to visit a risky web site.
Every month in the United States people perform about 6 billion web searches. Based on current research, approximately 5 percent of web sites are risky—and possibly even dangerous. If each search yields just one click from an unsuspecting web surfer, these sites get a minimum of 285 million clicks every month. The odds of visiting a risky site in a given month are very high. Both CSOs and home users need to look into safe searching tools like SiteAdvisor as part of their overall breach prevention strategy.
Along with other necessary protections that scrub out viruses, patch vulnerabilities, and block intrusions at the desktop and network level, safer searching is an important security consideration for CSOs as well as home users. SiteAdvisor currently keeps PCs off limits to unwanted programs and helps prevent unsuspecting users from being victimized by fraudulent schemes like identity theft. In the near future, enterprises may see similar technologies emerging that would provide an extra layer of protection at the desktop in the never-ending battle of the breach.
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