The Cocoon Blog
The Internet as it should be: private, secure and virus free

Last week a friend was searching Google images and with just one click on the wrong image, he was redirected to a malicious domain. Upon arrival at the malicious domain, a Java executable promptly downloaded, executed and immediately connected to a rogue IP address. One click on a rogue image was all it took for my friend to become automatically infected via a drive-by-download.

A drive-by-download is a program that is automatically downloaded to your computer without your consent.

Typical drive-by-download (URLWriteFileToDisk)

1-Browser loads the URL
2-Browser executes the exploit code
3-Next, browser executes the shellcode
4-The shellcode downloads malware to disk
5-Shellcode executes malware

Softpedia

Search result poisoning attacks are relatively common, but the vast majority of them are used to spread fake antivirus products, commonly referred to as scareware.

The Cocoon Solution

With Cocoon we make it simple. When you connect to the Web with Cocoon, the pipeline runs from the Cocoon servers to the web and not from your computer to the web. Cocoon enables you to browse securely, prevents automatic drive-by-downloads and is malware-free.

If you would like to learn more about how Cocoon can protect you, please visit us today!   You can also use our handy contact form or join us on Twitter or Facebook!

It’s a beautiful spring day and you just sat down at your desk with a fresh cup of hot coffee. You can’t wait to check out the latest news feeds to see what has happened since last night. You feel that you are going to get a lot accomplished today, maybe even have some time to chat on Facebook later.

While you are perusing news feeds your son calls from college and asks for your help in locating a really cool picture of Mussolini. He has an important presentation that he has to give tomorrow.

You mosey over to Google images and begin your search. As you scroll through the images one picture in particular grabs your attention. Ah that is such a striking picture! You click on Mussolini and instantly a script connects to IP 69.50.xxx.xxx TCP port 8000 and downloads malware to your computer. You have just suffered a common malware attack!

Wikipedia defines Malware as, short for malicious software, is a software designed to harm or secretly access a computer system without the owner’s informed consent.

Malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, spyware, dishonest adware, scareware, crimeware, most rootkits, and other malicious and unwanted software or program.

Malware removal can be an expensive and time consuming process. Once a system is compromised there is no guarantee that the system can be returned to a 100% pre-malware state.

Now there is Cocoon

Cocoon prevents automatic drive-by-downloads, prevents you from being tricked into manually downloading malware and protects against web-based attacks because it blocks malware before it makes it to your computer.  You still see the whole Web with crystal clarity, but you aren’t connected directly to it. Malware can’t get to your computer, ever.

Stay tuned for Part Five (next week) of Get the W-Rap on Cocoon.  If you don’t want to miss the latest news please subscribe to our RSS feed.