Re: Firefox security question

On Wed, 08 Feb 2006 22:37:46 -0500, General Schvantzkoph
<schvantzkoph@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

What I'm concerned about is if there is another way that a website can
pull sensitive information off of your system via the browser.

Not really, other than your general location via IP address. Of course
a check with BrowserHawk http://www.cyscape.com/showbrow.aspx?bhcp=1
will give a lot of info about your computer, but that's not a problem.

Firefox remembers all sorts of things like phone numbers and addresses
and automatically fills in forms. While this is very convenient it feels
awfully dangerous, you certainly wouldn't want a random website to be able
to grab a credit card number or your social security number without your
having to explicitly submit the form. What's Firefox's mechanism for
protecting information like this?

It IS dangerous to allow auto-fill-in of forms. Turn it off! I don't
want Firefox to remember any of that stuff.

To do it, type 'about:config' in the Firefox address box. Scroll down
to this line and double-click it so it resets like this:

browser.formfill.enable user set boolean false

Also a good idea to not allow websites to track what other sites you've
been to. To do that, scroll on down to these 2 lines and double-click
them so they are reset like this:

network.http.send RefererHeader user set integer 0
network.http.sendSecureXSiteReferrer user set boolean false

To keep anyone from grabbing bank account, credit card or Social
Security numbers, or passwords for stuff like online banking etc. it's
best to just not have them anywhere on your HD. That way, even if
someone hacks directly in by guessing a password or whatever, that kind
of information is simply not there for the taking.

Of course it helps to do more system security measures such as an
occasional rootkit check, installing Bastille and Portsentry, etc.

--
Registered Linux user #266531
.

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