What I would like to know also is what software is used on the server
that maintains this list? Some have received viruses from the list,
whilst others have not had their messages appear, whilst others have
had their IDs faked....
Antonio
On 7 Jul 2004, at 13:53, Antonio Aparicio wrote:
http://www.computerweekly.com/articles/article.asp?
liArticleID=131776&liArticleTypeID=1&liCategoryID=1&liChannelID=171&liF
lavourID=1&sSearch=&nPage=1
The security issues in Internet Explorer have highlighted the need for
companies to think about supporting other web browsers on their
customer-facing websites to control the security threat.
A number of security bodies and industry experts, including the US
government-backed CERT, and non-profit Sans Institute, have urged
companies to consider Microsoft alternatives. These include Netscape,
Opera, Mozilla and Apple's Safari.
Richard Brain, technical director at security consultant ProCheckup,
said: "It is a good idea to use other, safer browsers like Firefox by
default, and the more complex, buggy Internet Explorer to access those
sites which will only work with IE.
"IE is an overly complex bit of software�that should really get back
to its simpler roots as a web browser, so that Microsoft developers
can simplify it and remove its security holes," he said.
"Online businesses that follow this advice may have to re-engineer
their websites to make them fully accessible to non-Microsoft
browsers."
Phil Cracknell, security consultant at NetSecurity, advises his
clients to use non-Microsoft web servers, based on Unix, Linux, and
Netscape, together with Microsoft IIS, to confound the hackers.
"More obscure�operating systems�will get hacked less," Cracknell said.
He added that Microsoft should not be vilified, because it has
provided what users demanded.
"We wanted interactive stuff and to plug things into the browser; and
there's a cost to that: there will be ports open.
"The Windows environment, while it is slated for OS vulnerabilities,
has had to go through a hardening process, and I think Microsoft has
stepped up to the mark," Cracknell said.
Analysts said it will be possible, although not effortless, to develop
interactive, animated e-commerce sites that can be viewed on other
browser platforms.
Bola Rotiba, senior analyst for software development strategy at Ovum,
said it is a myth that websites will not work well in non-Microsoft
browsers.
"Why should companies lose any functionality? There is nothing to say
the animations shouldn't exist [in alternative browsers]," Rotiba
said.
Rotiba added that translating the site for different browsers can be
straightforward. "It depends on how much abstraction has been done to
build the site. HTML is not an issue; bog-standard HTML can be
optimised easily.
"The questions to ask are what is the site doing: is it dynamic or
static? If it uses dynamic HTML and cascading style sheets, it will
take more work," Rotiba said.
If the site uses a high degree of scripting languages like PHP and
CFML (ColdFusion Markup Language), developers will also have their
hands full, she said.
"Tools like Macromedia MX, and Dreamweaver MX allow you to produce a
site for every platform available. But if you've written the scripts
in something like CFML, there are not many tools available to
translate the interactive, dynamic part," Rotiba said.
