Vigilant security analyst Ronald Thomas of Albuquerque once again makes me stop in my tracks and go Hmm.
As part of a tip toward an interesting PC site (ComputerHope.com) he pointed out this interesting page:
http://www.computerhope.com/cgi-bin/systeminfo.cgi
Just click on that link and stare in dismay at the long, long list of things your browser just gave away. Depending on your habits, some of them might not be things you’d prefer to reveal. I can hardly imagine a better way to perform a little espionage on a suspect spouse: look at that list of visited sites, for instance. Hmm, got a little Facebook account I didn’t know about?
Beyond that, my particular rendition of that page pointed out one add-on app that needed updating. If I were running a real exploit site, I could latch onto that vulnerability and exploit to my heart’s content. And every visitor to the site might reveal information, or leave infected with some nasty zombieware. Heck, I could set up dozens of exploits that get deployed contingent on the visitor’s weaknesses. Sweet, huh?
Just one more reason to Fear Your Browser.