Anti-phishing toolbar
Some of you may already be familiar with Netcraft. They produce massive amounts of statistics for web site owners on site vistors etc. Because of this they have huge databases of informationon websites and the net in general and they have decided to make use of those databases in order to help people defeat scammers running phishing expeditions. To do this they have created a toolbar for Internet Explorer (and are working on one for Mozilla) that mines their database for information on sites you are visiting.
The Netcraft Toolbar uses Netcraft’s enormous databases of web site information to show you all the attributes of each site you visit on the Web, including the sites’ hosting location, country, longevity and popularity.
It also mobilizes the Netcraft community into a giant neighbourhood watch scheme to empower the most alert and experienced members to protect the vulnerable against fraud and phishing attacks.
Toolbar features include:
- Clear display of sites’ hosting location at all times helps you validate fraudulent urls (e.g. the main online banking site of a large US bank is unlikely to be hosted in the former Soviet Union).
- Once you report a phishing URL, it is blocked for other community members subsequently accessing it. The leverage of widely disseminated attacks (people constructing phishing attacks send literally millions of electronic mails in the expectation that some will reach customers of the bank) is utilized to expedite blocking of the fraud site.
- Natively traps cross site scripting and other suspicious urls containing characters which have no common purpose other than to deceive.
- Netcraft supervisor validation is used to contain the impact of any false reporting of urls.
- Display of browser navigational controls (toolbar & address bar) in all windows, to defend against pop up windows which attempt to hide the navigational controls to disguise location.
- Happily coexists with Google and other Toolbars.
Good on you Netcraft. I’m sure the toolbar will provide you with anonymous surfing habits, thereby increasing the business value of your databases, but as long as it doesn’t personally identify the user who cares.
You can download the toolbar here
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