Grisoft, maker of AVG antivirus and Internet security software, on Wednesday announced the acquisition of Exploit Prevention Labs, maker of the LinkScanner family of safe Web-browsing applications.
Unlike other safe-surfing applications, which tend to rely on databases, LinkScanner uses technology that determines, as the page is downloaded onto your browser, whether it is tainted with malicious software.
In CNET Reviews testing, LinkScanner has detected recent changes on Web pages where other safe surfing applications, such as McAfee SiteAdvisor, has not. One limitation of LinkScanner is its inability to determine whether a page is fraudulent; LinkScanner determines only whether the page has malicious content.
Grisoft plans to host Exploit Prevention Labs' products on its site. According to Grisoft, Exploit Prevention Labs' 18 employees will join Grisoft. Roger Thompson will become chief research officer, Greg Mosher will become vice president of engineering, and Chris Weltzien will become vice president of business development.
As the automated Mpack attack continues to turn thousands of legitimate Web sites into compromised sites offering drive-by downloads of malicious software, security researcher Roger Thompson over at Exploit Prevention Labs reminds us there are other exploits compromising legitimate sites, and some are as easy to find as entering a simple search string on Google. For more than a week (starting before the current Mpack attack), Thompson has been posting a list of dangerous search strings on his blog site. I've collected these and indicated in parentheses some of the known exploits associated.
- atlas mountains country (WebAttacker 2 or MPack)
- rotweiller rescue
- North Padre Island (WebAttacker 2 or Mpack)
- arches national park (WebAttacker 2 or MPack)
- canyonlands national park
- mass lottery
- air disasters in Florida (WebAttacker 2)
- cd key windows xp profesional
- batmobile for sale
- victoria's secret (fake codec)
- pokemon ruby gamesharks
- blue book (mdac exploit)
- IBM stock
- pallet fire
- Nigerian economic and financial crimes
- who's a rat
Exploit Prevention Labs makes LinkScanner, a browser plug-in that will identify and block known exploits on tainted sites before you download the page. There are other safe surfing tools available as well; some are free.
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