Firefox Extension Boosts Browser Security
The Carnegie-Mellon University (CMU) made available a Firefox extension developed at their School of Computer Science and College of Engineering that improves security in Firefox by protecting against man-in-the-middle attacks. The extension, named Perspectives, is available only for Firefox 3 and works on Windows, Linux (32-bit) and OS X (Intel), with support for Linux (64-bit) and Open Solaris being in the experimental stage of development.
A man-in-the-middle attack is performed by intercepting the traffic between a user and a resource that he is trying to access. This can be achieved by exploiting several vulnerabilities, like the latest DNS cache poisoning or GMail accounts hacking incidents show.
When accessing a server resource using secure protocols like SSL or SSH, a correct identification of the server is required. This is achieved through digitally signed certificates. Due to the fact that certificates issued by trusted authorities like VeriSign are expensive, it became common practice for small businesses and websites to use self-signed certificates. Read More»
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