New privacy system to make web surfing safer

 Researchers have built a new system that protects internet users' privacy and dramatically improves the safety of surfing the web.

Researchers from University College London, Stanford Engineering, Google, Chalmers University of Technology and Mozilla Research have built the system called `Confinement with Origin Web Labels', or COWL. It works with Mozilla's Firefox and the opensource version of Chrome web browsers and prevents malicious code in a web site from leaking sensitive information to unauthorized parties, while allowing code in a web site to display content drawn from multiple web sites -an essen tial function for modern, feature-rich web applications.

Testing of COWL prototypes for the Chrome and Firefox web browsers showed the system provides strong security without perceptibly slowing the loading speed of web pages. Currently , web users' privacy can be compromised by malicious JavaScript code hidden in legitimate websites. The website's operator may have incorporated code obtained elsewhere into his or her site without realizing that the code is malicious. Such code can access sensitive data within the same or other browser tabs, allowing unauthorised parties to obtain or modify data without the user's knowledge.

Posted in: EXPERT ADVICE