That is pretty darn scary. The part about stealing all the user's saved passwords in Firefox especially. Although it sounds specific to Windows in this case, running your web browser on a machine...
That is pretty darn scary. The part about stealing all the user's saved passwords in Firefox especially.
Although it sounds specific to Windows in this case, running your web browser on a machine that also allows you to install arbitrary executables is looking like a security risk.
I meant installing new executables that run with the user's full permissions, outside any sandbox. This is how it's done on desktop OS's. There have been security holes that allow intruders to get...
I meant installing new executables that run with the user's full permissions, outside any sandbox. This is how it's done on desktop OS's.
There have been security holes that allow intruders to get out of a browser's JavaScript sandbox, but at least for the major browsers, it requires multiple exploits to be chained together. They are pretty rare these days and tend to get patched pretty quickly.
Neat article. My partner's PC had a similar version of this recently, but the default search was "impersonating" Yahoo (and poorly, it was like Google's page format but with a Yahoo logo) and the...
Neat article. My partner's PC had a similar version of this recently, but the default search was "impersonating" Yahoo (and poorly, it was like Google's page format but with a Yahoo logo) and the first page was almost always junk search results just like this, which would redirect eventually to the "real" result, but would go through some affiliate website before doing so. Sometimes, the page would "flash" briefly 4-5 times before it would take you to the desired page, no doubt routing through a sequence of clicks instead of just one. We didn't go to the extent of seeing whether all the same changes pointed out in this article were made, we just reformatted and haven't had the same issue since.
We believe it was downloaded as one of the browser extensions distributed with Daemon Tools Lite, since she just clicked OK through the install process and they've done some more insidious stuff with those now like leaving a "I do not want this software installed" checkbox unchecked by default. My machine (also installed DT Lite) did not have this same effect. Not sure which one it was, but be safe out there downloading software.
Protip: Windows can mount ISOs now, so most people don't even need tools like DT. Try using wincdemu, an open source utility for much the same function from sysprogs. I've seen too many warnings...
Protip: Windows can mount ISOs now, so most people don't even need tools like DT. Try using wincdemu, an open source utility for much the same function from sysprogs. I've seen too many warnings about DT installing adware on people's computers to trust it.
I don't know if it's still getting updates nowadays (i use linux btw), but check out Unchecky if you haven't. It tries to automatically refuse these kinds of stuff in the background, and it worked...
since she just clicked OK through the install process and they've done some more insidious stuff with those now like leaving a "I do not want this software installed"
I don't know if it's still getting updates nowadays (i use linux btw), but check out Unchecky if you haven't. It tries to automatically refuse these kinds of stuff in the background, and it worked pretty well back when I was using it.
That is pretty darn scary. The part about stealing all the user's saved passwords in Firefox especially.
Although it sounds specific to Windows in this case, running your web browser on a machine that also allows you to install arbitrary executables is looking like a security risk.
(Not sure if joke) Always has been, always will. Ever since JavaScript first came about, any website also qualifies as an arbitrary executable.
I meant installing new executables that run with the user's full permissions, outside any sandbox. This is how it's done on desktop OS's.
There have been security holes that allow intruders to get out of a browser's JavaScript sandbox, but at least for the major browsers, it requires multiple exploits to be chained together. They are pretty rare these days and tend to get patched pretty quickly.
Neat article. My partner's PC had a similar version of this recently, but the default search was "impersonating" Yahoo (and poorly, it was like Google's page format but with a Yahoo logo) and the first page was almost always junk search results just like this, which would redirect eventually to the "real" result, but would go through some affiliate website before doing so. Sometimes, the page would "flash" briefly 4-5 times before it would take you to the desired page, no doubt routing through a sequence of clicks instead of just one. We didn't go to the extent of seeing whether all the same changes pointed out in this article were made, we just reformatted and haven't had the same issue since.
We believe it was downloaded as one of the browser extensions distributed with Daemon Tools Lite, since she just clicked OK through the install process and they've done some more insidious stuff with those now like leaving a "I do not want this software installed" checkbox unchecked by default. My machine (also installed DT Lite) did not have this same effect. Not sure which one it was, but be safe out there downloading software.
Protip: Windows can mount ISOs now, so most people don't even need tools like DT. Try using wincdemu, an open source utility for much the same function from sysprogs. I've seen too many warnings about DT installing adware on people's computers to trust it.
I don't know if it's still getting updates nowadays (i use linux btw), but check out Unchecky if you haven't. It tries to automatically refuse these kinds of stuff in the background, and it worked pretty well back when I was using it.