[jaxisland]

I was having a discussion with a few co-workers about this. If you have a couple tabs open to the internet, then you open a couple tabs to internal sites like firewall and AV is that posing a bigger security threat?

Should web and internal sites be kept on two instances of IE or should they never be opened simultaneously?

What do you think?

[Advertisements]

i wouldn't think having multiple tabs would make anything less secure....one would imagine that if someone were to engineer a way to "steal" info from another tab while their site was open in a seperate tab....that they'd be able to do the same thing with multiple ie windows...

[dsenette]

i wouldn't think having multiple tabs would make anything less secure....one would imagine that if someone were to engineer a way to "steal" info from another tab while their site was open in a seperate tab....that they'd be able to do the same thing with multiple ie windows...

[jaxisland]

True thats a good way to think about it. Now does IE treat each tab like a new "window"?

[dsenette]

i think so? that's the best answer i can do there

[jaxisland]

Haha, nah thats fine. Like I said it was just one of those discussions that started up. To me if someone has hijacked your internet browsing, then all internet apps is at risk.

[Major Payne]

Hate to come up with this again, but if you want a "safer" browser, use Firefox. Latest version 2.0.0.7 is out now. Has some great extensions and will load "IE only sites" using IE Tab extension.

Ron

[dsenette]

*dsenette kicks the old man in the shins

it's still firefox though (not a big fan)

[jaxisland]

No defintely Major, I have FireFox but it was more of an IE discussion. For safety we all agree that Mozilla is better. But I mean the basic question is the same, can someone more easily see whats on the other tabs rather than a new window. I think the consensus is if they can see one they can see both.

(FireFox-downloaded but not used)

Edited by jaxisland, 19 September 2007 - 11:14 AM.

[Major Payne]

The PurpleMonkeyDishWasher pretty much has it in the bag on the answer to your question even if he is anti-FF. I'm not anti-IE, just don't need to use it anywhere except to check my web page design and how screwed up IE has made it. Interesting discussion over the water cooler, though, but back to work!

Ron

[jaxisland]

Anything to distract me from work

[Johanna]

Users running Firefox are vulnerable to IE flaws via files supported by Windows Media Player, a researcher shows.

Running Firefox or Opera as a default browser won't save you from unpatched Internet Explorer vulnerabilities—a fact made explicit when a researcher showed how easy it is to put HTML inside files supported by Windows Media Player.

Researcher Petko D. Petkov said in a Sept. 18 blog posting that he's found that a fully patched Windows XP Service Pack 2 system running Internet Explorer 6 or 7 along with Windows Media Player 9—the default, although the media player is now up to Version 11—will open any page of an attacker's choice even if the default browser is not Internet Explorer.

The broader implication is that even users who think they're safe because they don't run IE are exposed to any IE vulnerabilities out there, Petkov said. This is true not only for Windows Media Player users but also for those who run Skype, GTalk and AIM, given that those applications all use IE for rendering incoming and outgoing messages, he told eWEEK in an e-mail.

http://www.channelin...s/215558_1.aspx

People get lulled into a false sense of security thinking FF is the answer to "safe surfing".
Johanna

[jaxisland]

Users running Firefox are vulnerable to IE flaws via files supported by Windows Media Player, a researcher shows.

Running Firefox or Opera as a default browser won't save you from unpatched Internet Explorer vulnerabilities—a fact made explicit when a researcher showed how easy it is to put HTML inside files supported by Windows Media Player.

Researcher Petko D. Petkov said in a Sept. 18 blog posting that he's found that a fully patched Windows XP Service Pack 2 system running Internet Explorer 6 or 7 along with Windows Media Player 9—the default, although the media player is now up to Version 11—will open any page of an attacker's choice even if the default browser is not Internet Explorer.

The broader implication is that even users who think they're safe because they don't run IE are exposed to any IE vulnerabilities out there, Petkov said. This is true not only for Windows Media Player users but also for those who run Skype, GTalk and AIM, given that those applications all use IE for rendering incoming and outgoing messages, he told eWEEK in an e-mail.

http://www.channelin...s/215558_1.aspx

People get lulled into a false sense of security thinking FF is the answer to "safe surfing".
Johanna

Ouch FF gets taken down a notch or two

[Major Payne]

I love Firefox and still trust it more then any other browser. The attacks are, again, through a Micro$oft application. If you don't use the FF WMP plug-in, you should be ok. Anyone who surfs or puts a computer on the Internet using ANY browser thinking they are safe, is just asking for it. Goes for anyone who thinks that, just because their one or two malware programs didn't find anything on their machine after a scan, means no malware is there.

FF version 2.0.0.7 is put out a few days ago so hope you've updated if you use FF. Thanks for the info, Johanna. Good reading.

Ron