One of the things that tends to make a little skittish is surfing websites with my iPhone browser. Typically this isn’t as up to date as it should be. There is no protections of any kind really. Now, the folks at Trend Micro have announced a free security tool to protect iPhone/iPod Touch users.
From CBR Online:
Trend Micro has launched its Trend Smart Surfing, a free web browsing security application for iPhone and iPod touch that is reported to offer another layer of protection against web threats by blocking access to malicious websites.
According to Trend Micro, Trend Smart Surfing is an internet browsing tool, which uses its web reputation technology, a component of the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network, to block users of iPhone and iPod touch from unintentionally visiting websites that may contain malicious content designed to steal confidential information and personal data.
This might sound like a good idea but, I’m more concerned about perfectly legitimate sites that may have been compromised. Those are the sites that tend to be of a far greater concern. There isn’t really any indication that this tool will afford any protection in these instances.
The company said that key features of Smart Surfing include: in-depth browser security powered by the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network that blocks access to malicious web pages; color-coded search results that make it easy to identify harmful web pages; three protection strength levels that users can modify according to their needs; and able to support browsing of multiple web pages at the same time.
As near as I can tell this is little more than a list of bad sites. Not sure that this offers any real protection at all.
Thoughts?
[tags]iPhone Browser, iPhone Security, Trend Micro[/tags]
i suspect it is not a hard coded list of bad websites but rather a list in the cloud that is updated frequently such that if you’re one of the first to encounter the site (bad or legitimate but compromised) you’ll still get hosed but after a certain point some condition is met that causes it to be added to the list and then future potential visitors are protected…
as with a number of technologies through history, the first few on the scene often act as canaries in the coal mine…
I think this is a really good first step in layering on security for the iPhone, however because of limitations in the SDK it’s not fully effective. Links opened from emails always go to Safari (There is no equivalent of the ‘default browser’) so this won’t help with email phishing attempts. One could argue phishing is the biggest risk on the mobile browser currently since there are no currently known exploits or malware for the iPhone to worry about (yet!).
If the SDK allowed for it, it would be nice if this was implemented as a plug-in for the current browser.