Internet Explorer and Protection from Internet

[BladeNL]

Now i have patched up explorer with everything i could find at microsoft.. but i still am attacked this way.
Luckely spybot search&destroy and lavasoft add-aware clean up most problems.

What really pisses me off is this unauthorized hacking those sites do. And i wont even mention Microsoft for programming this obviously full of security holes sh*tty program called explorer.

/flame off

Now.. here is my question:

Is there any way to configure explorer or to install additional programs to stop these forms of attack AND still surf comfortably without clicking yes or no 20 times on every web page you visit. I tried high protection.. but the pop ups of asking for permission to run some script are real annoying.. And more then half the time you dont even know what you''re clicking yes or no to anyways.

Can anyone help me with this?

 

[CTho9305]

Stop using that swiss cheese browser and get protection.

 

[capybara]

yes, i use and prefer firebird also, but for those who prefer IE:
1. disable msmsgs.exe
2. disable dcom
3. disable activex
4. use anti-virus, the best u can afford
5. use zone alarm or better
5b. even better, use a router as a hardware firewall
6. disable.....um, if forget the xact name, i think its windows printer and file sharing
7. disable icmp
8. run adaware6
9. dont use mail services that automatically open attachments or auto open the most recent letter u recvd.
this means dont use outlook express.
10. scan for viruses all downloads b4 opening them. yes, that means mp3s also.

 

[Nothinman]

2. disable dcom

This will could potentially break other apps.

5b. even better, use a router as a hardware firewall

This won't help you unless it does application level filtering and most of the ones that do that are insanely expensive.

7. disable icmp

You can't disable icmp, if you most of your IP connections wouldn't work properly.

10. scan for viruses all downloads b4 opening them. yes, that means mp3s also.

Just leave the on-access scanner running and there's no reason to scan things because it'll catch them as you save them. And MP3s can't carry viruses, but if a file is renamed to something stupid like blah.mp3.exe and you double-click on it without paying attention you probably deserve what you get anyway.

 

[sciencewhiz]

Originally posted by: NothinmanAnd MP3s can't carry viruses, but if a file is renamed to something stupid like blah.mp3.exe and you double-click on it without paying attention you probably deserve what you get anyway.

What if the MP3 exploits a buffer overflow in WMP?

 

[TegSkywalker]

Simple solution is to use this as your new browser: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firebird/

 

[Nothinman]

What if the MP3 exploits a buffer overflow in WMP?

You can say what if all you want but you have to draw the line somewhere.

 

[onelin]

Wasn't there actually an explorer exploit where windows automatically read tag info on mp3s and someone found out how to exploit it? fixed nowadays, but it's more than 'what if' since it is out there. I remember patching. Still, I agree you have to draw the line somewhere. Do virus scanners even check for that kind of stuff?

 

[BladeNL]

Thnx for the attention and answers to this post.

I downloaded Firebird today and will give it a try.
I have really had it with explorer and all the @#$% i get hit with. Sure spybot and lavasoft clean them up. But it gets darn frustrating when
you open explorer and you're homepage is changed again and again to some stupid page you dont want.. and sites are added to your favourites.. and
you get redirected to sites you dont ever wanna go to.. and.. the annoyements just keep going on.

Sometimes i wish i was a extremely good hacker and put all the above mentioned sites out of business for every dirty trick they pull (just like all the sites
where you're spam mail tries to get you to visit). If there is any Superman hacker outthere who wants to fight these crimes.. plse do You got my vote.

 

[capybara]

Originally posted by: BladeNL
Thnx for the attention and answers to this post.

I downloaded Firebird today and will give it a try.

smart! now you dont have to bother with that "disable icmp, dcom, msmsgs etc etc"

 

[capybara]

nothingman: i speak from personal XP-erience that disabling icmp and dcom works
just fine and i see no negative side effects. are you speaking from personal XP-erience that disable icmp and dcom doesnt work or has negative side effects? if so pls XPlain.
1. icmp can be disable in the reg, if you think it cant be done, google up "disable icmp" ! you will see you have to add a second line, to disable icmp redirects (plural with the s on the end of it).
2. one of steve gibson's apps (grc.com) is called something like dcom-bobulate for disabling dcom.or you can do it manually in the reg. no ill effects in my personal XPerience!
thx,
capy

 

[Nothinman]

ICMP redirects are only 1 type of ICMP packet, the full ICMP protocol has dozens of messages, and they're not used often and technically should be disabled out of the box anyway because they can cause problems because they can be used to misdirect traffic. ICMP is handled by the IP stack so to really disable all of it you need to filter it with a firewall. Disabling ICMP type 8 (echo/ping requests) is one thing, but if you stop all ICMP you will have problems as different connection management messages use ICMP.

 

[capybara]

about the mp3 spreading viruses. i was on winMX the other day and saw a
so-called mp3 with a double extension name. something like filename.exe.mp3.
so watch out. and one of the things teekid (t33kid) wrote (besides the thing that got him arrested, which i think was msblast)
is a program to embed viruses/worms/whatevers
in mp3s. this program is still today available for download, as i found out by googling
teekid. so heads up with mp3s !

 

[Nothinman]

exe.mp3 shouldn't cause any problems, explorer would just try to open it in wmp or winamp and they would barf on the PE header since it's not a MPEG header. it's file.mp3.exe or the like you need to worry about.

Embedding a worm in a MP3 would only do anything if your player was vulnerable to some sort of buffer overflow exploit and if information on this was easily found on google I'm sure it's patched by now.

 

[capybara]

now heres another IE vulnerability with no current easy fix: URL spoofing.
see
http://www.secunia.com/advisories/10395/
or i should have started this post
"now heres another reason to use firebird............................"

 

[Kappo]

Originally posted by: capybara
now heres another IE vulnerability with no current easy fix: URL spoofing. see http://www.secunia.com/advisories/10395/ or i should have started this post "now heres another reason to use firebird............................"

Or people can actually do what they need to to secure your system. Ever wonder why people try to exploit IE? Because 95%+ of the population uses it. What good is writing an exploit for less than 5% of the browsers? The same applies to ALL MS products. Now, I am not even going to say that I think they are perfect, because they do ALOT of things I do not agree with. But ever wonder why you never hear of UNIX virus's or Mac Virus's? Because no one cares. Just the same as selling a product. Would you rather sell 3 or 3,000 of the same product?

That being said, I have used IE since I cannot remember when. I refuse to use a browser that 11 people on earth (all MS haters, at that) code for. Hell, even MY site wouldnt work 100% and I am at least empathetic. I have had to remove spyware I think twice that I know of. If you are on sites that ask you to install a bunch of stuff...STOP looking for porn and warez. Its that easy. I can find a ton of sites out there that have that same crap...but they are not NEARLY as much as when you hit seedy sites.

I do NOT use virus protection AT ALL. I have had exactly ONE virus (msblast) in the past two years. I surf at MINIMUM of 3 hours a day.

If you have alot of issues with security, then the problem is sitting in front of your monitor

 

[Nothinman]

Ever wonder why people try to exploit IE?

Because it's easy?

Because 95%+ of the population uses it

Then explain why there's a ton more IIS exploits than Apache. Apache runs like 2/3 of the websites on the Internet so why go for IIS?

I have had exactly ONE virus (msblast) in the past two years

And that shows you're negligent because the RPC patch was out months before blaster.

 

[Kappo]

Yes, it was MY fault...NO doubt about that...

I am not talking about IIS. I use IIS for my personal webserver to test pages, Apache is my main choice for work as well as any sites I personally need hosted. I am saying that if you arent lazy or negligent (as in my case) then IE works fine and renders pages well. I can sit here and list a CRAPLOAD of things I have to throw in for the other browsers for CSS alone, so if anyone dares say that firebird is 100% compliant and adheres to strict standards I can show them my list of "fixes" for alternate browsers so that pages do not look obscene when they look at them. Thats not to say IE is PERFECT. There are fixes I have to do for it as well. But all in all the people promoting that these other browsers are "better" is crap.

It is a preference thing. I would be willing to wager that if Firebird, if it was on top, half of the people LOVING it would want something else, because it is evil and has security issues. Everything has security issues, it just depends on how hard someone looks.

 

[Nothinman]

I am not talking about IIS

I know, but you said people attack IE becaue it's the most popular but if that were true wouldn't they also attack Apache instead of IIS?

so if anyone dares say that firebird is 100% compliant and adheres to strict standards I can show them my list of "fixes" for alternate browsers so that pages do not look obscene when they look at them.

Take your list of 'fixes' and report them in the bugtracking system, how else are they going to get 'fixed'?

 

[Kappo]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I am not talking about IIS

I know, but you said people attack IE becaue it's the most popular but if that were true wouldn't they also attack Apache instead of IIS?

If it was Microsoft, you betcha! If you cannot feel the hate from the anti-MS crowd almost everywhere that is technology related, then something is wrong. I don't particulary like MS, but it is not because of their products.

so if anyone dares say that firebird is 100% compliant and adheres to strict standards I can show them my list of "fixes" for alternate browsers so that pages do not look obscene when they look at them.

Take your list of 'fixes' and report them in the bugtracking system, how else are they going to get 'fixed'?

Already done several times. Not that all 23 of the other users haven't done the same. In the end I won't really care if they fix it or not. It really isn't worth my time to code for less than 2% of my visitors.

I will say that if game manufacturers start making games for Linux that don't suck, then alot of my visitor's numbers would change, and my desktop would be Debian. And when I have to look at my own site you can believe I am going to make it look good in whatever browser I use, as well as the most popular one

 

[Nothinman]

If it was Microsoft, you betcha! If you cannot feel the hate from the anti-MS crowd almost everywhere that is technology related, then something is wrong. I don't particulary like MS, but it is not because of their products.

Then you'd think they'd put extra work into their software to avoid things like this, most of the time it's a buffer overflow that could have been prevented fairly easily with input checking.

Already done several times. Not that all 23 of the other users haven't done the same. In the end I won't really care if they fix it or not. It really isn't worth my time to code for less than 2% of my visitors.

Funny, from the "favorite browser" and many "firebird rocks" threads I'd say there's more than 23 Mozilla users on this forum alone.