Opera Takes On Phishers New Anti-Phishing Features Part of v8.0 Beta 2 Staff
On Friday, Opera released the second beta of its upcoming browser (v8.0) with features designed to combat phishing (define). A component in many forms of identity theft and online banking scams, phishing schemes rely on tricking users to visit spoofed sites and divulge their account information.
In Opera Beta 2, the familiar padlock icon is joined by another graphical aid designed to help users confirm the validity and security posture of a Web site before engaging in a transaction.
A small yellow bar, activated when visiting a secure site, displays the name of the company that pertains to the site's security certificate. A mismatch can alerts a user to a possible scam. Clicking on the bar reveals additional information on the certificate issued.
The company also states that the browser will only display domain names from "certain top level domains (TLD)," according to a statement. This trusted TLD setup is meant to combat a potential spoofing mechanism in browsers that support Internationalized Domain Names, a feature that allows the address bar to display web addresses in their native character sets.
Opera's Vice President of Engineering, Christen Krogh, explains, "The challenge for browser vendors is to better explain the verification of certificates and to make the user more aware of this additional verification before entering into secure transactions."
Opera 8.0 Beta 2 for Windows can be downloaded here.
