As Ben Worthen says in his well documented and realistic article Beyond the firewall, “The new breed of hacker has a bag full of tricks to get around the technology that companies historically have relied on to keep them safe, so-called firewalls that act like a fence around the company network. Security today requires a new generation of tools designed to keep a company’s data safe even if a hacker has gained access to the network.” , the conclusion is that we continuously need to find better ways to discourage hack attacks.
Deskperience has been developing Web Replay, a program for web automation and password management, since 2001. Web Replay can be divided in 3 major parts:
1. Web automation – Web Relay recorder helps you deal with multi page login as in www.bankofamerica.com. For more details please visit http://www.deskperience.com/webreplay/guide.html
2. Security – You will never be cheated with email scams such as phishing attacks
3. Web Replay mobile – Is it frustrating to enter your id and password to log into your web account from your mobile? Use Web Replay to automatically log into your internet accounts directly from your mobile with a click (a solution for Windows Mobile). For more details please visit http://www.deskperience.com/webreplay/guide.html
I’ll develop here only the Security part.
Let’s see another example of email scam from Ben’s article and comment it through Web Replay features: “Fred Danback, chief information officer and managing principal at New York-based Integro Insurance Brokers, nearly fell for one of these targeted attacks recently when he was trying to sell tickets to the Broadway show “Wicked” on eBay from his home computer. Someone sent him an email asking if his tickets were the same ones the emailer had seen listed elsewhere on the site. The emailer provided a link, and Mr. Danback clicked on it.
The Web page asked him for his eBay username and password, which Mr. Danback entered before he noticed the site was a fake — it didn’t have the little lock icon in the corner that indicates a legitimate site. He didn’t hit the “Enter” key, so the scam was foiled.”
When you receive such an email a moment of inattention from your side is enough for the attacker to steal your id and password from your online bank account. And what’s next… we do not want to think about!
How to prevent hackers benefit from our moment of inattention
Web Replay has these so simple and however highly pragmatic anti-phishing features:
1. Anti-phishing window alert
This feature prevents you from sending your username and password to a web address you think it belongs to the legitimate owner which may prove to be! It may look like www.bankofamerica.com.net instead of the real web address – www.bankofamerica.com !
But here interferes Web Replay anti-phishing alert that prevents you from entering your username and password IF the web site you’re about to navigate to is not the one you think you saved with Web Replay! For more detail please visit: http://www.deskperience.com/webreplay/guide.html
2. Green login fields
This may be considered the chromatic anti-phishing alert of Web Replay.
Once you’ve saved a login with Web Replay next time when you navigate to that login page you’ll notice that the login fields are green. If you click a link to a web address in your email and still think it is the same login page you saved with Web Replay, you’ll definitely notice that the green is missing from the username and password fields and that’s a good reason to check the legitimacy of that web site!
3. Say goodbye to keyloggers
You automatically log into your web accounts with a click, without typing anything. You cannot be a victim of such kind of software as long as all you have to do is clicking a button from Web Replay toolbar to launch one of your saved macros or you can also launch any of them from system tray bar.
4. A master password protects your Web Replay database locally on your computer.
Set a master password to protect your Web Replay database while you’re away from your computer at work and other employees can have access to it or if you’re not the only one using it. You can also set an auto-lock timeout in case you forget to sign out Web Replay.
As you can see, they are simple features but their strength comes from their mainly pragmatic sense: you have an alert box if you’re navigating the wrong way, green login fields as a mark of legitimacy, a click to be automatically logged into your email and avoid keyloggers and a master password to protect the Web Replay items you have saved (logins, macros, bookmarks, safe notes and many more – for more details please visit http://www.deskperience.com/webreplay/guide.html )
