In a recent post, I explored some of the tradeoffs engineers must make when evaluating the security properties of a given design. In this post, we explore an interesting tradeoff between Security and Privacy in the analysis of web traffic. Many different security features and products attempt to protect web browsers from malicious sites byContinue reading “Security Tradeoffs: Privacy”
Category Archives: browsers
Security: Tradeoffs
Absolute security is simple– put your PC in a well-guarded vault, and never power it on. But that’s not what PCs are built for, and good luck finding a job that would pay you for such advice. Security Engineering (like all engineering) is a story of tradeoffs. Tradeoffs commonly take place across multiple dimensions: AsContinue reading “Security: Tradeoffs”
Attack Techniques: Fullscreen Abuse
It’s extremely difficult to prevent attacks when there are no trustworthy pixels on the screen, especially if a user doesn’t realize that none of what they’re seeing should be trusted. Unfortunately for the browsing public, the HTML5 Fullscreen API can deliver this power to an attacker. Today (and for over a decade now), an attackingContinue reading “Attack Techniques: Fullscreen Abuse”
Defensive Techniques: Application Guard
Earlier this year, I mentioned that I load every phishing URL I’m sent to see what it does and whether it tries to use any interesting new techniques. While Edge’s “Enhanced Security Mode” reduces the risks of 0-day attacks against the browser itself, another great defense available for enterprise users is Microsoft Defender Application Guard.Continue reading “Defensive Techniques: Application Guard”
How do Random Credentials Mysteriously Appear?
One commonly-reported issue to browsers’ security teams sounds like: “Some random person’s passwords started appearing in my browser password manager?!? This must be a security bug of some sort!” This issue has been reported dozens of times, and it’s a reflection of a perhaps-surprising behavior of browser login and sync. So, what’s happening? Background EvenContinue reading “How do Random Credentials Mysteriously Appear?”