14 DAY TRIAL // Version 12.0 of Google Chrome will be capable of offering customers protection against malicious downloads. Early adopters can already get a taste of the new security feature introduced in Chrome by downloading and testing the latest Dev Channel release provided by the Mountain View-based search giant.
Chrome 12.0.725.0 Dev is now available for testers on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, providing such enhancements as an update to the V8 JavaScript engine and Tab multi-select improvements.
At the same time, Google has also worked to kick up a notch the browser’s security capabilities in relation to social engineering attacks.
Chrome already offered users protection against websites distributing malware via drive-by downloads via Safe Browsing.
In fact, the Safe Browsing API is being used not only for Chrome, but also for Firefox and Safari. However, it does have its limitations.
Essentially, Safe Browsing focuses on notifying users about malicious websites they visit. A newly created website which hasn’t been tagged as malicious could trick victims into downloading malformed software as part of social engineering attacks without Safe Browsing being able to do anything about it.
This is where the new enhancements introduced in Chrome 12.0.725.0 Dev come in.
The new feature “aims to protect users against these kinds of downloads, starting with malicious Windows executables. The new feature will be integrated with Google Chrome and will display a warning if a user attempts to download a suspected malicious executable file,” revealed Moheeb Abu Rajab, from the Google Security Team.
Essentially, when Chrome customers will attempt to download a malicious file they will receive a warning from the browser.
“This warning will be displayed for any download URL that matches the latest list of malicious websites published by the Safe Browsing API,” Rajab added.
“We’re starting with a small-scale experimental phase for a subset of our users who subscribe to the Chrome development release channel, and we hope to make this feature available to all users in the next stable release of Google Chrome. We hope that the feature will improve our users’ online experience and help make the Internet a safer place.”
The new security feature in Chrome 12.0 designed to offer protection against malicious downloads mirrors capabilities already introduced in Internet Explorer 9.
IE9 SmartScreen Application Reputation is also designed to safeguard users against potentially dangerous downloads based on the reputation of files.
Google Chrome for Windows is available for download here.
Google Chrome for Linux is available for download here.
Google Chrome for Mac is available for download here. Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows 7 and Windows 7 SP1 is available for download here.
Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2 is available for download here.
Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows Vista SP2 64-bit edition and Windows Server 2008 SP2 64-bit edition is available for download here.
Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows 7 64-bit edition, Windows 7 SP1 64-bit edition, Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit edition and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 64-bit edition is available for download here.