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Security

Haute Secure – Blocking drive-by malware downloads

By ryan naraine July 17, 2007, 3:21 AM PDT

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Haute Secure – Blocking drive-by malware downloads

Read the EULA

Read the EULA

Before installing, the user is required to agree to an End User Licensing Agreement (EULA).

Haute Secure – Blocking drive-by malware downloads

Requires a restart

Requires a restart

Upon installation, Haute Secure requires a Windows restart to complete the process.

Haute Secure – Blocking drive-by malware downloads

The Haute Secure Toolbar

The Haute Secure Toolbar

The utility works within Internet Explorer, much like a regular toolbar. This screen shows Haute Secure living within IE 7 on Windows Vista.

Haute Secure – Blocking drive-by malware downloads

The warning icon

The warning icon

When Internet Explorer browses to an unsafe Web site, the Haute Secure toolbar turns red and displays a “warning” sign.

Haute Secure – Blocking drive-by malware downloads

This site is very dangerous

This site is very dangerous

On live exploit sites, Haute Secure blocks the Internet Explorer user from browsing and displays a bright red icon with a blunt “This site is very dangerous” warning.

Haute Secure – Blocking drive-by malware downloads

Unblocking a site

Unblocking a site

If an Internet Explorer user wishes to unblock a site flagged as dangerous, this can be done via a few mouse-clicks.

Haute Secure – Blocking drive-by malware downloads

Rootkit.com, marked as safe

Rootkit.com, marked as safe

During my testing, I browsed to some sites that host known harmful code. Haute Secure lists Rootkit.com as safe, because there is no attempt to launch a drive-by exploit.

Haute Secure – Blocking drive-by malware downloads

OffensiveComputing.net, not so safe

OffensiveComputing.net, not so safe

At OffensiveComputing.net, a research-focused malware repository, Haute Secure isn’t as accomodating. rnrn

An IE user is greeted with a blinking yellow message in the toolbar, marking Offensive Computing as hosting “embedded” content.

Haute Secure – Blocking drive-by malware downloads

Embedded content warning

Embedded content warning

Browsing to a known exploit site brings up another orange-colored “embedded content warning.”rnrn

EDITOR’S NOTE: Do not browse to the URL in this screenshot with an unpatched Windows machine and without adequate protection from malware files.

Haute Secure – Blocking drive-by malware downloads

No search page warning

No search page warning

Unlike McAfee’s SiteAdvisor and Exploit Prevention Labs’ LinkScanner, Haute Secure does not issue a warning when search results return known bad sites.rn

In this example a search for “Lindsay Lohan screensavers” brings up a known exploit site but Haute Secure does not flag this. rnrn

See next slide to see what happens when the known site is launched…

Haute Secure – Blocking drive-by malware downloads

Lindsay Lohan screensaver warning

Lindsay Lohan screensaver warning

When the user clicks on the “Lindsay Lohan screensaver” from the search result (see previous slide), Haute Secure flashes a “warning” in the Internet Explorer toolbar.

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