Last Updated August 21 2023: When establishing a secure HTTPS connection with a server, a browser must validate that the certificate sent by the server is valid — that is to say, that: In the past, Chromium running on Windows delegated this validation task to APIs in the operating system, layering a minimal set ofContinue reading “TLS Certificate Verification Changes in Edge”
Category Archives: security
Mark-of-the-Web: Additional Guidance
I’ve been writing about Windows Security Zones and the Mark-of-the-Web (MotW) security primitive in Windows for decades now, with 2016’s Downloads and MoTW being one of my longer posts that I’ve updated intermittently over the last few years. If you haven’t read that post already, you should start there. Advice for Implementers At this point,Continue reading “Mark-of-the-Web: Additional Guidance”
“Not Secure” Warning for IE Mode
A customer recently wrote to ask whether there was any way to suppress the red “/!\ Not Secure” warning shown in the omnibox when IE Mode loads a HTTPS site containing non-secure images: Notably, this warning isn’t seen when the page is loaded in modern Edge mode or in Chrome, because all non-secure “optionally-blockable” resourceContinue reading ““Not Secure” Warning for IE Mode”
HTTPS Goofs: Forgetting the Bare Domain
As I mentioned, the top failure of HTTPS is failing to use it, and that’s particularly common in in-bound links sent via email, in newsletters, and the like. Unfortunately, there’s another common case, whereby the user simply types your bare domain name (example.com) in the browser’s address bar without specifying https:// first. For decades, manyContinue reading “HTTPS Goofs: Forgetting the Bare Domain”
Attack Techniques: Notification Spam
A colleague recently saw the following popups when using their computer: Because they seemed to come from nowhere in particular, they seemed credible– either Windows itself had detected a virus, or perhaps their computer was infected with malware and it caused the popups? The reality is more mundane and more much more common. These areContinue reading “Attack Techniques: Notification Spam”
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