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Vulnerability in the Information Age: What Browsers Reveal

Published:18 November 2014Publication History

ABSTRACT

The exponential growth in the use of web services and applications has increased the amount of personal information registered on websites and databases worldwide. Consequently, users are more exposed to vulnerability flaws and more subject to the impact of leaking this information. This article investigates how personal information is handled by three popular browsers: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, by analyzing data collected in shared research laboratories. Through the analysis of data stored by browsers on a shared computer laboratory, we found a large number of cookies with important personal information, showing that these browsers can reveal more than the users would like.

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    • Published in

      cover image ACM Other conferences
      WebMedia '14: Proceedings of the 20th Brazilian Symposium on Multimedia and the Web
      November 2014
      256 pages
      ISBN:9781450332309
      DOI:10.1145/2664551

      Copyright © 2014 ACM

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      Association for Computing Machinery

      New York, NY, United States

      Publication History

      • Published: 18 November 2014

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      WebMedia '14 Paper Acceptance Rate25of86submissions,29%Overall Acceptance Rate270of873submissions,31%

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