New Paper: More than 600 million users surf at high risk

["Stefan Frei" <stefan.frei () techzoom net>]

Hi List,

For the last 18 month we analyzed the daily USER-AGENT data collected by
Google's Web search and application servers around the world to study how users
patch and update their Web browsers.

We came out that approximately 637 million (or 45.2 percent) users currently
surf the Web on a daily basis with an out-of-date browser – i.e. not running a
current, fully patched Web browser version.

And this is only the tip of what we call the "Insecurity Iceberg", not counting
all the vulnerable browser plug-ins.

One of the new concepts we came up for combating the inadequacies of
Web browser
patching was that of applying the food industries "Best Before" date to the Web
browser and its plug-ins.

Paper:
Understanding the Web browser threat:
Examination of vulnerable online Web browser populations and the
"insecurity iceberg"

Authors
- Stefan Frei, Communication Systems Group, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
- Thomas Duebendorfer, Google Switzerland GmbH
- Gunter Ollmann, IBM Internet Security Systems, USA
- Martin May, Communication Systems Group, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Paper Download:
http://www.techzoom.net/insecurity-iceberg



Regards
Stefan Frei