Windows SmartScreen or Download Reputation
Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer provides a download manager with integrated SmartScreen malware protection and introduces SmartScreen download reputation. SmartScreen Download Reputation is a groundbreaking browser feature that uses reputation data to remove unnecessary warnings for well-known files, and show more severe warnings when the download has a higher risk of being malicious. The feature has now been improved upon and enhanced. The SmartScreen Filter now dynamically determines whether a website is dangerous or not, by pinging remote servers each time a user tries to reach a web page. The feature thus warns users if they visit a known or suspected website and then prevents any downloads from that site or prevents the site from injecting malicious code. Users today are often conditioned to ignore generic warnings that are shown for every download. Other browsers show the same warning whether a file is an extremely common program or a piece of malware created literally minutes ago. Internet Explorer is the only browser that uses download reputation to help users make safety decisions. SmartScreen Download Reputation allows IE to remove warnings for commonly downloaded programs and show actionable warnings for programs that are higher risk. In the browser Download Manager you’ll see, there’s a clear warning for the higher-risk program, and there’s no warning at all for the well-known program. You may see messages like: With SmartScreen Download Reputation in IE, consumers can then make better safety decisions. Microsoft has also provided this Application Reputationcapability to all Windows users. When this opt-in feature is enabled, an Application Reputation check is made on the first launch for programs that are downloaded from the internet. Windows SmartScreen will notify users if they are about to run a program that has not yet established reputation and therefore is a higher risk program. For programs or publishers with an established reputation, the experience is simple and clean: Click and Run. Read: SmartScreen filter warning messages explained.
XSS Security feature
Internet Explorer now is more secure! Among its new or enhanced security features is XSS or Cross-site scripting protection. By default, this feature is enabled in IE. When the filter discovers a likely XSS in a cross-site request, it first identifies & then neuters the attack, if it is replayed in the server’s response. You might want to read these posts too:
