Saturday, May 29, 2004
Does your antivirus software warn you about this page?
On May 16, a blog entry here warned about a way bad guys can disguise where a web link goes, and gave an example. The example was a link that (in some browsers) looks like it goes to coke.com, but actually goes to pepsi.com.
An alert reader (thanks, John!) wrote to say that his McAfee VirusScan complained when he visited this page. Commendably, VirusScan looks for exactly that trick and warns its users.
If you click my example, the worst that can happen is that you'll get Pepsi instead of Coke (some people think that's bad enough!).
It's good that the anti-virus software raises it hackles and barks when it sees something strange. Remember, though, that you're smarter than anti-virus software and your ultimate protection is being street-smart. If someone walks up to you on the street and says "Hey, come into the alley here" you won't do it. Same deal in cyberspace. If you get spam with a link that says "click here for free porn!", well, don't walk into that alley.
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An alert reader (thanks, John!) wrote to say that his McAfee VirusScan complained when he visited this page. Commendably, VirusScan looks for exactly that trick and warns its users.
If you click my example, the worst that can happen is that you'll get Pepsi instead of Coke (some people think that's bad enough!).
It's good that the anti-virus software raises it hackles and barks when it sees something strange. Remember, though, that you're smarter than anti-virus software and your ultimate protection is being street-smart. If someone walks up to you on the street and says "Hey, come into the alley here" you won't do it. Same deal in cyberspace. If you get spam with a link that says "click here for free porn!", well, don't walk into that alley.
# posted by Frederick @ 10:56 PM Email to a friend:
Haloscan: they provide trackback