Recently India’s premier technology institute IIT’s website has been hacked (source), although this is not single case in India, a total of 612 Indian websites were defaced during March 2008 as reported by CERT-In (Computer Emergency Report Team India), which has increased by more than 50% in India, comparing to just previous month.

Social networking is also a victim of hackers in a recent study, as per CERT-In, a worm called Scrapkut is spreading like a cold (human virus) among Orkut users, how it works?, well, a malicious scrap message is posted to victim’s scrapbook containing a fake link to YouTube video purporting to be from a known member of its friend list. When the victim clicks on the link, it redirected to some malicious website which prompts to download the file flash executable file (.exe) disguised as a Flash upgrade. The execution of which results in malicious scrapbook entry in all victims’ friends. So… DO NOT CLICK on any YouTube link on your Orkut scrapbook. For more details and preventions see - Here.

Mozilla and Microsoft Office products isn’t untouched by this, Mozilla products like Firefox, Thunderbird & SeaMonkey are among high vulnerability threat list, according to which this could be exploited by remote attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user.

In Firefox, a borderless XUL pop-up is created in front of the active tab in the user’s browser from a background tab to misguide/ mislead the form elements such as a login prompt for a site opened in a different tab and steal the user’s login credentials for that site (phishing attack). and poke into your security fences. for this one solution (unavoidable though) is to disable javascript. For more Details and solutions for Mozilla products see - Here and for Fireofox - Here

The list of vulnerabilities threats are as -

High vulnerabilities - MS Office, Excel, Outlook, Mozilla Products, Real Player, Sun Java

Medium vulnerabilities - PHP, GNOME, OpenSSH

Malicious Code Threat - ScrapKut (Orkut)

]]> http://www.indianweb2.com/2008/04/india-high-on-internet-vulnerabilities-orkut-mozilla-on-list/feed/ http://www.indianweb2.com/2007/11/top-10-firefox-hacks-tricks/ http://www.indianweb2.com/2007/11/top-10-firefox-hacks-tricks/#comments Tue, 06 Nov 2007 14:40:55 +0000 Vardaan http://www.indianweb2.com/2007/11/top-10-firefox-hacks-tricks/

1. Increasing Speed of Firefox Browser »

1.Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

Alter the entries as follows:

Set “network.http.pipelining” as -> “true” (doubleclick if its “False”)
Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true” (doubleclick if its “False”)
Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number like 30 or so. This means it will make 30 requests at once.P.S - Double click on “value Row

Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0″. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

2. Network Tweak Settings - Firefox Extension

One can use this Networking Tweak Firefox Extension as an alternative to above mentioned trick in configurations/ preferences if you find changing each settings manually as annoying.

The Network Tweak Extension tweak few hidden setting under Firefox preferences/ configurations and speed up web page loading time as well as maximum no. of simultaneous downloads from a single site which by default is only 4.

This Extension when installed will be placed under Firefox ‘Tools’ menu and can be configured from there and compatible with Firefox 2.0+. Download Extension - Here

Thanks Edwin Martin

3. Close Buttons for Tabs »

Basically in Firefox for close buttons there are three options to choose, which you can choose by editing entry called - browser.tabs.closeButtons;

just like former hack in this as well you have to type- about:config in address bar and Edit value of entry - browser.tabs.closeButtons which is by default is 1, for different values what it mean is;

1 -> show close button for each tab
2 -> do not show close button
3 -> show close button at right-hand most corner for closing tabs altogether

4. Caret Browsing in Firefox »

A very few people know about Caret Browsing, which can be enabled or disabled in Firefox by pressing ‘F7′, this feature places a cursor in web pages that allows to select text with keyboard and other key combinations (Ctrl + Shift + arrow keys to select texts word by word), it is just like to that of any text editors like Notepad, MS word etc.

Alternatively for caret browsing go to Tools->Options->Advanced->Accessibility-> Uncheck “Move system caret with focus/selection changes”.

5. Restore Browser Sessions

Normally, in Firefox 2+ versions, if Firefox shuts down all of a sudden then it restore session but it does not happen if you close all tabs accidentally and lost all your work, you can do this by setting another preference as - Tools -> Options -> under main tab select - ‘Show my windows and tabs from last time‘.

Alternatively you can also set preference under about:config page as - browser.startup.page key to 3.

This trick is extremely helpful for Bloggers as the post will reopen as intact (tested by myself in WordPress) as well as form entries will be intact in any web page with form.

6. Easiest Way to ‘Open Links in new Tab’ »

Most of the Firefox users know that to open Link in tab, Right Click -> Select ‘Open Link in New Tab’ but there is easiest way to do so i.e. your scroll wheel of your mouse or center button just click it and open the link in new tab via most quicker way.

7. Feed Preview Option »

Since a long time when someone click on Feed/ RSS link a page opens asking about to subscribe in Google Reader rather than to show XML/ RSS page itself, you can change this preference by editing your preference under menu tabs of Firefox - Tools > Feed, now select the option - ‘Show me a preview and ask me which Feed Reader to use’

8. Setting Home Page when Firefox Starts »

Though I believe pretty good amount of the Firefox users know about this settings under firefox options but for those who don’t, you can set one or more home page(s) when Firefox starts by editing ‘Home page‘ entry under main options setting i.e. - Tools > Options > Main.

Here you can add one or more URLs of web-page you want to open every time Firefox starts, you just have to separate each URL entry with pipe-symbol which is - ‘|’ (just above Enter key in QWERTY keyboard). see picture below for more -

9. Scaling/ Rescaling Images in Firefox »

Toggle Firefox Automatic Rescaling Preference - Firefox by default rescale the large images so that it can fit browser window, though users can alter this feature by changing the automatic rescaling preference to false, this gain done by typing about:config in address bar and look for preference - browser.enable_automatic_image_resizing, double click on entry so that value (if true, which is by default) is toggled to false.

10. Google Browser Sync - Firefox Extension »

Google Browser Sync is a Firefox Extension from Google to synchronize you browser settings and open tabs, windows across different computers provided provided you have Google account.

This extension synchronize bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords across different computers.