Enhanced Protection with IE9’s SmartScreen Filter
A new research report from independent information-security research and testing organization NSS Labs shows that Internet Explorer 9 Beta protects the user from 99% of socially-engineered malware downloads. According to NSS Labs, “With a unique URL blocking score of 94% and over-time protection rating of 99%, Internet Explorer 9 was by far the best at protecting users against socially-engineered malware. ”
The following graph compares the protection offered by various browsers against socially engineered malware attacks:
IEBlog readers may notice that IE8’s results have improved over the last year-- continued investments in improved data intelligence have resulted in a 5% increase in effectiveness.
Internet Explorer 9 benefits from the same back-end investments, as well as other enhancements to the URL Reputation Service and the innovative new Application Reputation feature. Beyond flagging potentially-risky downloads, the Application Reputation feature helps reduce warning prompts when downloading software with an established reputation.
To date, IE8 and IE9 Beta have blocked 1.3 billion phishing and malware attacks and continue to block millions of attacks every day. We are committed to continually improving our intelligence systems and processes so we can continue to provide industry-leading protection from phishing and malware.
If you haven’t already, please download Internet Explorer 9 Beta and enjoy enhanced protection against socially-engineered malware.
-Eric Lawrence
Comments
Anonymous
December 14, 2010
The comment has been removedAnonymous
December 14, 2010
Is it a research sponsored by Microsoft?Anonymous
December 14, 2010
yeah it sure seems like it.Anonymous
December 14, 2010
I do wonder what kind of methodology NSS Labs uses that makes IE block 98% of threats, while Opera gets 0% having sources from phishtank, netcraft, AVG and previously thwate. Smells like rat.Anonymous
December 14, 2010
The latest IE9 on Win7 64bit is awesome. Firefox on the same system uses more system resources than SQL Server.Anonymous
December 14, 2010
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December 14, 2010
Hey IE team, I am running WMP 10 using Microsoft App-V on Windows 7. It runs perfectly without any issues when IE8 is installed. When I install IE9, the embedded browser in WMP makes WMP crash.Anonymous
December 14, 2010
Doesn't matter which version WMP I'm using, but with IE9 installed, the embedded browser crashes. When I uninstall IE9, WMP stops crashing when browsing Media Guide etc.Anonymous
December 14, 2010
@Erwin Oh man that mouse release bug is so annoying, if thats what I've been experiencing. I'll be selecting form elements while posting a comment or something and somehow click an ad on the top of the screen when I move the mouse.Anonymous
December 14, 2010
oooh LoL, it doesnt matter about the malware protection but it DOES MATTER ONLY ON SPEED AND CPU, i hope IE9 use much LESS RAM at the CPU and it's not as slow as IE8 , thats what all matter's, the speed, how fast is IE9 compaire to IE8Anonymous
December 14, 2010
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December 14, 2010
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December 14, 2010
IE TEAM, WHERE ARE THESE BUTTONS IN IE9 AND HOW DARE YOU REMOVE THEM!: img196.imageshack.us/.../ie9wtf.pngAnonymous
December 14, 2010
They removed everything except content. In IE10 they will remove adress bar and back button, favorites button (no, really, why I should make 4 clicks to add website to favorites?), home button and page button. IE10 will look like Platform Preview. And IE11 will just display bigger and uglier IE logo after launch without any web-pages.Anonymous
December 14, 2010
Enhanced protection is good but with the new unreadable text I'm already protected because there is no way I can read the text telling me to enter my password.Anonymous
December 14, 2010
@Max: rolf In fact, I like the new UI, it is nicer and cleaner, I just want to for example click the magnify glass icon to get my search terms back! they are changing too much my browsing behaviour without that! with this IE9 beta MS makes me wish to switch to ff or chrome (I also use those, but my main browser is IE)Anonymous
December 14, 2010
@Max When Opera, Google, and Mozilla do something similar they are hailed as revolutionary. When IE does something, it is either hated or the feature is "too late". The back and forward buttons are greatly used for browsing on any browser, as is the address bar.Anonymous
December 15, 2010
@mors: You can find out exactly what kind of methodology NSS Labs used by, you know, actually reading their full report. You can even try it out for yourself if you still don't believe Opera should get 0%. @IE team: This is excellent news, I've been saying for a long time now that the real problem with browser security is these kind of socially engineered attacks and it's good to see positive steps being taken to help the less computer literate from being tricked into running malicious software. Good job.Anonymous
December 15, 2010
@johnnyq3 It was a joke. I'm using IE8 as my daily browser on my home pc and on my laptop. But I don't like the way they changed it in IE9. I love glossy icons. Just look at back and froward buttons in Windows Explorer. IE always looked same to Explorer and I liked it! Now it looks too simple. I love IE8 glossy logo, I love glossy icons. They look "real". Noe IE9 plastic logo looks like a cheap toy. That oversized back button wich is partly hidden behind page looks like a bug... And I can't use a browser without indicator for feed or webslice. I also use "send to one note" button. Now to get theese two buttons I should display a large, old, ugly bar for just two buttons. I don't like that they disabled the displaying title of web-page in window title. Some web-sites have large tites, and some languages have long words. Then this window title just uses space. It's absolutely useles.Anonymous
December 15, 2010
These are great news... testing IE 9! Kelvin http://hellotecnologia.comAnonymous
December 15, 2010
MSFT, don't lie; it makes you look bad.Anonymous
December 15, 2010
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December 15, 2010
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December 15, 2010
@James Honeywell It would seem logical that Micrsoft payed for the report. Noone else will pay for a report that is likely to make IE outshine other browsers. Google would be happy to pay for such research if it was posible for them to outshine IE on this particular feature. At Least Microsoft has hired an indepent research company to do the research on a feature. Of course they already knew before this feature wil make their browser shine in such a comparison. They are not likely to publish reports that make them look worse thasn the compettition. But it is still better than the far less independant browser speed tests that are published all the time which are mostly directly associated to a browser(engine) developer.Anonymous
December 16, 2010
Non è vero! Prima di tutto il test risale a Settembre 2010, e il meccanismo di reputazione di Internet Explorer 9 di sicuro non poteva influenzare il test allora (ma neanche adesso). Poi il test è sponsorizzato da Microsoft e guarda caso Internet Explorer è primo. E poi se leggete il report vedrete che la metodica è fallata, perchè questi della NSS hanno scelto i siti da testare in base a dei "loro criteri" mah!?! Solito marketing made Microsoft!Anonymous
December 16, 2010
I don't care if they funded it, just the obvious that they should have the beta versions of other browsers in there as well, as firefox 3.6 is basically ancient.Anonymous
December 16, 2010
@Chris The report is from test in oktober so naturally the data will be older. Fruther more, non of the other browsers has reporter any significant progress in filtering social engineering attacks in their latest browser version. Newer browser versiosn are not likey to do better that the version did in oktober. Only IE9 has a newly introduced feature on trusted downloads for combatting social engineering attacks. That gives it significant improvement over IE8. So it seems fairly ok for Microsoft to ask NSS labs to compare IE9 with the current browser at the time of the test. If other browser intrduce improvements in their browsers against social engineering they will launch their own numbers on how these improve their security.Anonymous
December 27, 2010
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