Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff » Firefox beats IE in 'phishfight'

November 14, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Firefox beats IE in 'phishfight'

TAGS: Internet/browsers/e-mail

Anti-phishing technology in the new generation of Mozilla Firefox and Microsof Internet Explorer browsers punched it out and Firefox was victorious, The Washington Post's Security Fix reports.

One third-party test that pitted the browsers against two week's worth of phishing sites concluded that Firefox's phish net may have fewer holes than IE's.

The evidence was released today (PDF file) by software testing firm SmartWare, the report said. The company is said to have tested each browser against the same phishing sites flagged by contributors to Phishtank, an anti-phishing network run by OpenDNS.

Firefox blocked 243 phishing sites that IE7 overlooked, while IE7 blocked 117 sites that Firefox did not.

The report notes the differences between the two anti-phishing technologies, but highlights that they are not good enough yet:

While I applaud Microsoft and Mozilla for their first efforts, the reality is that -- depending on which browser (and setting) you use -- anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of the phishing scams are going to sneak past undetected. I'm not saying this is an easy problem to solve: It certainly isn't. But I'm left wondering whether a stronger "whitelist" approach that involves identifying legitimate banking sites might prove to be a more effective strategy, or at least a highly complementary one.

OK security experts and those who just play them on TV, what is the best way to filter out or flag phishing sites? Talk back to us below.

Posted by Mike Barton on November 14, 2006 10:32 AM

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