18 Aug 2009
NSS Labs, an independent security research group, found that Internet Explorer 8 was the best browser tested at thwarting phishing attempts. Firefox was statistically tied with IE for first with Opera and Chrome bringing up the rear. Safari was the real loser of the group with only 2% of phishing attempts blocked and there was no difference between the Mac or Windows client.
Phishing is a way in which a hacker lures an unsuspecting person
into giving away their credentials or personal information by using
a website that appears to be legitimate. This fraud has been
growing over the past several years and novices are at risk more
now than ever. The interesting statistic from the tests is that
phishing sites have an average life of only 52 hours, making it
extremely difficult to block or stop these sites.
The study used several thousands of malicious pages over the course
of July and also timed how long it took for each browser to add the
page to a black list. Internet Explorer took an average of just
under five hours, with Firefox not far behind. Again Safari lagged
behind taking over 54 hours to block a hazardous site.
NSS Labs has a full PDF file detailing the entire testing process
and their results.
