14 DAY TRIAL // Security solutions provider Zscaler revealed its latest product designed to aid Internet users while surfing the web. It’s called Search Engine Security (SES) and it’s meant to protect Internet Explorer customers against BlackHat SEO links in search engines.
SES already exists for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, but now the company also made the Internet Explorer variant available.
The way SES works is simple. Normally, when cybercriminals hijack a website and alter it to serve their purposes, they use Referer and User-Agent headers to decide if the user should be directed to the malicious webpage or a harmless one.
If it’s installed in the web browser, SES ensures that each time the user accesses a link from Google, Yahoo! or Bing, the headers are modified so that the hijacked site sees him as not being human, avoiding to redirect him to the malware-infested site.
Internauts who install SES will see a small piece of text at the top of the search engine result page which indicates if the feature is active or not.
The tool also allows customers to whitelist specific pages if they’re certain that they can’t cause any harm.
The control panel of the Internet Explorer version can be found in the Tools menu, under Search Engine Security options.
In the options menu, the user can activate the security feature for each search engine individually, he can set the Referer header, and add sites to the whitelist.
Internet users are advised to give SES a try, especially if they’re in the habit of using search engines on a regular basis.
Search Engine Security for Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox is available for download here.