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"Distrust and caution are the parents of security" - Benjamin Franklin
You will then see an Options window that has a Category row at the top and the features for that category below. The first category of interest is the General category. Select the option Always ask me where to save files. This will make it more obvious when a web page attempts to save a file to your computer.
To get started with these configuration changes, open Firefox and select Tools, then Options.
With assistance from the United States Computer
Emergency Response Team (US-CERT), we’ve created this slideshow to help you configure Mozilla’s Firefox Web browser to stay secure and safeguard your privacy while surfing. Some menu options may vary between versions of Firefox, so you should adapt the steps below as appropriate.
In some cases, these configuration settings may interfere with normal usage of some applications.
In this episode, Ryan Naraine and Dennis Fisher discuss the relative value of the never-ending disclosure debate, the value of zero-days and whether users should be worried about the ability of Google to remotely install apps on Android phones.[swf
file=”http://www.threatpost.com/sites/default/files/newswrap_21.mp3]
Under the Programs tab,
you can specify your default applications for viewing web sites, email
messages, HTML editing and various other network related tasks. You can also
disable Internet Explorer from asking you if you would like it to be your
default web browser here.
See more information on securing web browsers at the US-CERT web site.
Internationalized Domain Names (IDN)
can be abused to allow spoofing of web page addresses. This can allow phishing
attacks to be more convincing. To protect against IDN spoofing in
Internet Explorer, enable the Always show encoded addresses option.
This will cause IDN addresses to be displayed in an encoded form in the
Internet Explorer address bar and status bar, which will remove the visual
similarity to the spoofing target address.
The Advanced tab
contains settings that apply to all of the security zones. We recommend that
you disable the Enable third-party browser extensions option.
This option includes toolbars and Browser Helper Objects (BHOs). While some
add-ons can be useful, they also have the ability to violate your privacy. For
example, a browser add-on may monitor your web browsing habits, or even change
the contents of web pages in an attempt to gather personal information.
Alternatively, if you do not wish to
receive warning dialogs when a site attempts to set a cookie, you can use Internet
Explorer’s pre-set privacy rules. Click the Default button and
then drag the slider up to High. Note that some web sites may fail
to function properly with the High setting. In such cases, you
may add the site to the list of sites for which cookies are allowed, as
described previously.
By selecting the Sites… button,
you can manage the cookie settings for specific sites. You can add or remove
sites, and you can change the current settings for existing sites. The bottom
section of this window will specify the domain of the site and the action to
take when that site wants to place a cookie on your machine. You can use the
upper section of this window to change these settings.
You can then evaluate the
originating site, whether you wish to accept or deny the cookie, and what
action to take (allow or block, with the option to remember the decision for
all future cookies from that web site). For example, if visiting a web site
causes a cookie prompt from a web domain that is associated with advertising,
you may wish to click Block Cookie to prevent that domain from
being able to set cookies on your computer, for privacy reasons.
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