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04/17/2001 Archived Entry: "Sandbox The Hackers"

InternetWeek > In Depth > Content-Specific Security > Sandbox The Hackers > Apr. 17, 2001
IT managers can take every precaution-blocking inappropriate and suspicious Web sites, rejecting Visual Basic scripts or other Internet code and scanning each e-mail attachment for viruses-but that won't stop hackers from sneaking unknown viruses and sophisticated code past a company's antivirus and content-filtering gateways. Today's popular content-security technology ferrets out only known viruses or specified content.

It's this fear of the unknown that's starting to scare some IT managers into adding behavior-blocking, or "sandboxing," technology, as a last line of defense at the desktop. Behavior blocking prevents malicious code from doing something it's not authorized to do. If a downloaded executable program tries to erase the PC's hard drive or copy its address book, for instance, the software stops it cold. The desktop is the final frontier for many of these malicious attacks because that's where Internet code, such as macros, scripts, executables, screen savers, plug-ins, Java and ActiveX apps, typically run.

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