gHacks technology news » comodo verification engine http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:24:03 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Internet Security: Comodo Verification Engine http://www.ghacks.net/2009/05/06/internet-security-comodo-verification-engine/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/05/06/internet-security-comodo-verification-engine/#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 18:49:13 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=12627 internet securityThe Internet is a dangerous place. Danger not only exists on the dark side of the net but also on the light side, on respected Internet sites. It is therefor important to use an assortment of Internet security tools to prevent and identify attacks on the Internet. It is not just financial transactions – like those on PayPal or financial websites – that are a primary target of attacks. Attacks these days can also target a user’s privacy or identity.

Comodo Verification Engine is a free standalone Internet security program that has been designed to “verify the authenticity and identity of websites” to ensure that sensitive data is not falling into the wrong hands. The program is cross-browser compatible supporting popular web browsers like Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox but apparently not Google Chrome, Opera or Safari. It will run on all Microsoft operating systems including Windows 95, Windows XP and Windows Vista. The Internet security tool installs itself automatically in all supported web browsers.

It offers five cornerstones of verification and protection:

  • Verification of web page content (brands/logos)
  • Verification of login boxes
  • Verification of SSL session and encryption endpoint
  • Protection against Phishing attacks
  • Protection against Pharming attacks

There are basically two ways that Comodo Verification Engine uses to inform the user about the active website. The first is when the user moves the mouse over a site logo or brand on that website. Comodo will display a green (that color can be changed in the options) box around the website signaling that the website has been verified (or not if it was not). The main drawback of this method is that websites have to register with Comodo for this to work. Comodo claims that most financial and popular websites did (PayPal did for example) but that it can happen that subpages on those websites have not been added if that was not requested by the site owner. It will also mean that several smaller websites and probably many non-English websites are not included as well (for example the German PayPal.de website does not verify). Comodo can verify several trust credentials such as BBB online or TRUSTe.

That’s where the second indicator of a website’s trustworthiness comes into play. Both Firefox and Internet Explorer display a padlock in the status bar of the browser when a user opens a website that is using the SSL protocol.

internet security verification

Moving the mouse cursor over that padlock will display the information in the way shown in the screenshot above if the website validates.

Comodo Verification Engine is an interesting tool for users who work with websites that are included in the database. This mainly means English speaking users who work primarily with either Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox.

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