How to surf the Internet more safely with Internet Explorer
Exploring Security Options in Internet Explorer to enhance your security while browsing the Web.
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Now most security breaches are related to ActiveX, Java and Scripting.
Internet Explorer offers a good mechanism to customize your security, with the Content zone's. You can access the settings by selecting Tools > Internet Options from the Internet Explorer menu, and choosing the Security tab.
You will see that Internet Explorer lets you set different levels of security for 4 different types of sites: Internet, Local intranet, Trusted sites and Restricted sites.
Without any further action, the default security for sites on the Internet will be the Internet zone. By default, this is set to Medium security. I just want to highlight some of the settings which will be in effect:
- Download signed ActiveX controls: Prompt
- Download unsigned ActiveX controls: Disable
- Initialize amd script ActiveX controls not marked as safe: Disable
- Run ActiveX controls and plug-ins: Enable
- Script ActiveX controls marked safe for scripting: Enable
- Allow cookies that are stored on your computer: Enable
- Allow per-session cookies (not stored): Enable
- Java permissions: High safety
- Drag and drop or copy and paste files: Enable
- Lauching programs and files in an IFRAME: prompt
- Navigate sub-frames across different domains: Enable
- Software channel permissions: Medium safety
- Userdata persistance: Enable
- Active scripting: Enable
- Allow paste operations via script: Enable
- Scripting of Java applets: Enable
So we'll set the Internet zone to maximum security first. You can do that by either moving the slider to the High setting, or by pressing the Custom Level button, and choosing High in the Reset to: box (and clicking Reset).
This will change the items mentioned above to:
- Download signed ActiveX controls: Disable
- Download unsigned ActiveX controls: Disable
- Initialize amd script ActiveX controls not marked as safe: Disable
- Run ActiveX controls and plug-ins: Enable
- Script ActiveX controls marked safe for scripting: Enable
- Allow cookies that are stored on your computer: Disable
- Allow per-session cookies (not stored): Disable
- Java permissions: High safety
- Drag and drop or copy and paste files: Prompt
- Lauching programs and files in an IFRAME: Disable
- Navigate sub-frames across different domains: Disable
- Software channel permissions: High safety
- Userdata persistance: Disable
- Active scripting: Disable
- Allow paste operations via script: Disable
- Scripting of Java applets: Disable
Personally I made one small change in that I set per-session cookies to Enabled.
If you want to be even more secure, you can also set Run ActiveX controls and plug-ins and Script ActiveX controls marked safe for scripting to Disable, as well as disabling Java.
Now this will have some impact on Web sites you visit. If you want to be able to run ActiveX or Scripting on certain Web sites, just add them to the Trusted sites zone. You can add Web sites by selecting the Trusted sites icon, and pressing the Sites button. Note that by default, you can only add secure sites here (sites using https), just uncheck the Require server verification (https:) for all sites in this zone, and you can add any site.
By default, the security setting for Trusted sites is set to Low. Using the most critical settings as mentioned above, these are now set at:
- Download signed ActiveX controls: Enable
- Download unsigned ActiveX controls: Prompt
- Initialize amd script ActiveX controls not marked as safe: Prompt
- Run ActiveX controls and plug-ins: Enable
- Script ActiveX controls marked safe for scripting: Enable
- Allow cookies that are stored on your computer: Enable
- Allow per-session cookies (not stored): Enable
- Java permissions: Low safety
- Drag and drop or copy and paste files: Enable
- Lauching programs and files in an IFRAME: Enable
- Navigate sub-frames across different domains: Enable
- Software channel permissions: Low safety
- Userdata persistance: Enable
- Active scripting: Enable
- Allow paste operations via script: Enable
- Scripting of Java applets: Enable
The changes above won't guarantee you will never have a problem, bu they will certainly make it a whole less likely. Keep your anti-virus software up-to-date, and make it a practice never to open unknown email attachments.
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