Browser Security

This research investigates how cybercriminals exploit digital code-signing certificates to disguise malicious software as legitimate, trusted programs. By analyzing how modern web browsers and operating systems handle these “signed” threats, the study reveals significant inconsistencies in security responses that leave users vulnerable to deception. To address these gaps, the study demonstrates that a specialized browser extension can effectively narrow the attack surface and provide a more robust defense against certificate-based exploits.

PriveShield creates isolated profiles for clients based on their browsing history, interactions with websites, and the amount of time they spend on specific websites. This allows the users to easily prevent unwanted browsing information from being shared with third parties and ad exchanges without the need for manual configuration. Our evaluation results from 54 real-world scenarios show that our extension is effective in preventing retargeted ads in 91% of those scenarios.

The evolution of increasingly more complicated web applications relies on browsers constantly adding and removing features. At the same time, some of these web services use browser fingerprinting to track and profile their users with clear disregard for their web privacy. In this paper, we perform an empirical analysis of browser features evolution and aim to evaluate browser fingerprintability.