At WWDC 2025, Apple introduced an interesting new API, NEURLFilter, to respond to a key challenge we’ve talked about previously: the inherent conflict between privacy and security when trying to protect users against web threats. That conflict means that security filtering code usually cannot see a browser’s (app’s) fetched URLs to compare them against availableContinue reading “First Look: Apple’s NEURLFilter API”
Tag Archives: Network Protection
Understanding SmartScreen and Network Protection
The vast majority of cyberthreats arrive via one of two related sources: That means that by combining network-level sensors and throttles with threat intelligence (about attacker sites), security software can block a huge percentage of threats. Protection Implementation On Windows systems, that source of network threat information is commonly called SmartScreen, and support for queryingContinue reading “Understanding SmartScreen and Network Protection”
Defensive Technology: Windows Filtering Platform
Last November, I wrote a post about the basics of security software. In that post, I laid out how security software is composed of sensors and throttles controlled by threat intelligence. In today’s post, we’ll look at the Windows Filtering Platform, a fundamental platform technology introduced in Windows Vista that provides the core sensor andContinue reading “Defensive Technology: Windows Filtering Platform”
pushState and URL Blocking
The Web Platform offers a handy API called pushState that allows a website’s JavaScript to change the URL displayed in the address bar to another URL within the same origin without sending a network request and loading a new page. The pushState API is handy because it means that a Web Application can change theContinue reading “pushState and URL Blocking”
ServiceWorkers vs. Network Filtering
In a recent post, I explored how the design of network security features impact the tradeoffs of the system. In that post, I noted that integrating a URL check directly into the browser provides the security check with the best context, because it allows the client to see the full URL being checked and ifContinue reading “ServiceWorkers vs. Network Filtering”
Security Tradeoffs: Privacy
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”
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