An article over on CRN on March 15 entitled “Apple Safari Patch Shows Products Not Hacker Proof” is sure to get some people’s panties in a wad, but it does correctly post the facts, though it will fall short of educating the misled public that Apple products are not hacker proof.

This particular issue is that the WebKit browser engine used in Safari and Google’s Chrome has a multitude of “critical glitches”, 72 of them, that provides a large attack surface. Safari 5.1.4 has addressed these known vulnerabilities and you are encouraged to insure that update is in place.

One of the statements Marcus Carey with Rapid7 was quoted as saying in the above article is, ”Even just allowing employees to install iTunes on their machines exposes the organization to Safari/WebKit vulnerabilities”. That was said in regards to the need to manage the use of Apple laptops, tablets and smartphones when connected to a corporate network.

If you require assistance with any computer or network security related issue, please call us at 864.990.4748 – we provide service & support to the Greenville & Upstate, SC area!

Hey, it annoys me too! Why oh why do websites insist on force-feeding you content you might not actually want to hear? Please, web developers, give us the option to actually play your video if we want to. In fact, there is a particular web publication that I read frequently that does this on just about every page.. Yuck!

Anyway, the aforementioned person was using Firefox, and here’s how you disable this annoying feature on Firefox:

Select PREFERENCES, select APPLICATIONS, locate video formats and select ACTION for each item, such as QuickTime or Flash, and then select “always ask”.

For Internet Explorer (IE9 – if you are using something older… Uhmmm Time to upgrade!)

TOOLS / SETTINGS (Gear Icon) , Safety, Select “ActiveX Filtering”…   Now when you visit a website (such as www.YouTube.com), Flash should NOT play. You will get a warning saying you need to upgrade your Adobe Flash Player.  If you should want to view the Flash content, find the blue circle with a line through it to the right of the URL bar and you can enable for that site

For Chrome users, you can download extensions like “Stop Autoplay”. If you need assistance, I can type that up for you too =-)

Happy surfing…

No sooner had I posted about that than Google’s Chrome development team had posted that they have an update already prepared for the Chrome browser that in theory should protect from the man-in-the-middle BEAST attack.

More information can be found over on The Register …

When the update comes….  Install it =)

Here’s a look at our site for July 1st until August 1st broken down by browser and platform:

Homeland Secure IT Browser Stats

Other than the super-high bounce rate, we see some important information…

Internet Explorer running Microsoft Windows is just darn popular! Followed by Firefox and then Chrome, also on Windows…   In fact, they account for about 80 percent of all traffic…

Up next is Safari & Firefox on the Mac…  And then down a bit is Chrome on the Mac.  Mac is the apparent source of 9.38% of traffic to our site (And less than 5% of our business).

The iPad viewers and the Android viewers accounted for 2% and 1.2% respectively… So a number of people were sitting on the toilet while surfing our site.

Here’s a further break down of mobile user specs:

Homeland Secure IT mobile browser info

iPad, iPhone & iPod dominates this category for sure, with Android 2nd, and Blackberry 3rd…   Windows made a horrible showing… And what’s up with Palm? Someone is using that? hehe

I compared these stats to July 2010 and found Android usage has come up considerably, but iPad maintained a steady lead even then.

Looking at the percentage of Windows versus other platforms, Windows has lost only a two percentage points in a year, and those were taken up by mobile devices.

It will be interesting to see what this looks like in another year. I’m guessing mobile device usage will continue to grow, maybe even at an accelerated rate due to the large numbers of new tablets being introduced, and smartphones replacing older cell phones…

What are your experiences with your own website/s?

Case in point – people using Google for Gmail, Calendars, Talk, Docs and Sites will lose functionality according to Google starting August 1st of 2011 as they are making a switch to supporting only “modern browsers”, and all future code releases will be focused on the newer browser versions.

You can read more about this on the Google Docs Blog http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2011/06/our-plans-to-support-modern-browsers.html

The majority of people should be able to upgrade to newer browsers, however, there will be a handful who are locked into an older browser due to a particular website they use ONLY supporting IE7 for instance. If you are one of those who must use an older browser for a corporate website, but want to run a newer browser, that’s possible! Just download and install Google Chrome for instance and use IE7 only for your corporate site.

Should you need help upgrading your browser, or have questions, please call upon us at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com – we offer business computer support in the Greenville / Upstate, SC area….

What is the purpose? Smaller desktops, such as those found on netbooks could benefit from gaining a few pixels of real estate on the screen. However, as we browse more visually these days, it is not difficult to imagine that different ways to navigate the web may also be coming. I still enter a large percentage of all sites that I visit in manually, but I can foresee the day when that may not be the case.

Those who use tablets to browse find every way they can to avoid manually putting in the URL already.

Google Chrome is Gaining Ground Fast

Are you still using Internet Explorer? The majority of people are that hit our website and most others that track this information, but, as you can see from the graph on the right, alternative browsers are gaining ground.

Microsoft Internet Explorer, like it or not, is the de facto “standard” that web sites and web applications are built to support. There are many reasons for that, and obviously the main one is that IE is shipped with Microsoft Windows Operating Systems, and Microsoft Windows dominates as the OS of choice for both individuals and businesses.

As Apple Mac OS, Linux and other operating systems become a bit more mainstream, the alternative browsers that these systems ship with will cut into the Microsoft IE market share, but there is more going on here than a switch to new operating systems.

You are probably way ahead of me on this, but due to concerns over security, there seems to be a mass exodus away from IE. We’ve heard from our clients that they are worried about the seemingly endless flow of vulnerability announcements from Microsoft and then the subsequent patches that must be installed in order to ensure they can safely browse the web.

That, combined with the fact that other browsers are offering what feels like a faster browsing experience, a slew of new features, additional plugins or addons not available on IE, and a shiny new look makes it easy to see why the IE market share has dropped and Chrome has come up.

Chrome recently added some Active Directory integration making the browser even better than before for System Administrators.

Surprisingly, Mozilla Firefox, the second most popular browser, has actually been declining in popularity along side IE, while Safari and Opera have remained pretty constant in the low end of the scale.

With Chrome breaking into the ten percent market share, and pulling away from Apple’s Safari rapidly, it appears that Chrome could overtake Firefox in the next 12 to 18 months. Very interesting information.

Click on the graph for the link to the original article and more information.

No matter which browser you use, remember, there ARE security flaws. Chrome is not impervious to exploits, so, please remember to browse responsibly! Use current anti-virus / anti-malware, and common sense. (IE, Don’t install addons, plugins or codecs etc that you do not trust).

If you would like to discuss security concerns or whether a particular browser may be right for your business here in Greenville or the Upstate, please call 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com

Apple's Safari browser offers MS IE some stiff competition for security vulnerabilities!

The headline says it all – Apple just patched 48 vulnerabilities in their Safari internet browser, making it appear that the highly revered browser is now more of a threat to society than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer! Imagine that!?!?

Apple considers the updates to be “highly critical” and they are available for both v4.1 and v5.0, on both the Mac and the Windows operating system platforms..

What kind of vulnerabilities you ask? A number of them involve what is known as “remote code execution”, where a person browsing with a vulnerable version of the Safari browser could happen upon a malicious website, and code on that site could take ownership of the browsing computer by exploiting the security holes. The list is available HERE.

The solution is to get your browser updated ASAP, either to the latest version of the browser, which will get the latest updates, or, to update your current version. Should you require help with that, reply and I will try to give a step-by-step. Of course, there are alternate browsers you can use too, such as Mozilla Firefox, Google’s Chrome and Microsoft Internet Explorer to name a few.

Homeland Secure IT offers computer, server and network support, service and repair to Greenville and Upstate SC based businesses and individuals, so should you question your computer’s security, please don’t hesitate to give us a call at 864-990-4748, respond here or email johnh@homelandsecureit.com