Fergie's Tech Blog

IE7 Targeted by Adware Firms

Phil Muncaster writes on IT Week (UK):

Adware writers are likely to target the latest version of Internet Explorer with increasing frequency in 2007, causing a threat to user productivity, according to the Trend Micro chief technology officer for anti-spyware, Ed English.

In London this week with the firm's two other CTOs, Raimund Genes and Dave Rand, English told IT Week that adware companies will take advantage of the new features in IE7 to make money, such as the new tabbed browsing function, which can be hijacked to display the link to a dedicated adware site.

"IE7 will soon be the most dominant browser on the market, and it will [provide new opportunities] for exploits like 'tab-jacking'," he argued. "IE7 is also about to become the world's most popular RSS reader, so there is an opportunity for adware to be injected into RSS feeds."

The three also added their voices to the growing number calling on ISPs to use better content-based filtering to clamp down on spam and to provide security services alongside their basic connectivity packages.

posted by Fergie @ 12/05/2006 01:00:00 PM