Might not be intended, but they could make some 3rd party ad platforms show unfriendly ads in the next days.In case you are hiding your activities from your ISP by using some kinds of proxies, in theory they could know you if you visit a given website, by measuring the bandwidth.If the link is specifically designed for you, it would leak your IP and location information, some system information and settings, and the fact that you actually clicked it, implying you have read the message.They could make your system freeze simply by using a lot of resources in some cases.They could run mining scripts of a cryptocurrency.Or they simply attempt DDoS to another website using your browser, which may do damage to that website, or get you blocked from the other website, or both. They could exploit vulnerabilities in other websites, for example to steal your account, or bypass the firewalls between the internet and your local network. But even if there aren't any vulnerabilities in your browser, they could be dangerous depending on your definition. Websites could be dangerous if browsers have vulnerabilities. Firefox is the most popular Webkit-free browser as of now, but the same principles apply. * More precisely, Chrome and some of its relatives are powered by the Blink engine, which is based on Webkit. With consoles, the browser is bundled with the firmware and they don't seem to do a very good job keeping it up to date - possibly because it's more tightly integrated with the rest of the system and they can't afford to re-test everything thoroughly every time a minor patch is released. they auto-update to the latest version as soon as it's released. Why are exploits like this not so common on the PC? I suppose mostly because desktop browser vendors are much better at keeping their browser up to date. The same exploits can be used for malicious purposes.Īnd yes, this is a good analogy to PCs: these consoles are running an operating system like any personal computer and their browsers are based on Webkit - the same engine that powers overwhelming majority of desktop browsers*. The user who wants to exploit their console visits a specially prepared website and that's basically it. If you take a look at this and previous generation of video game consoles (PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series), the web browser is what is used to exploit bugs in the firmware to gain access to features that aren't normally available. In conclusion you can say that surfing web sites can harm your computer if you are unlucky and there is an unfixed vulnerability in your web browser.Īs a large number of those vulnerabilities require JavaScript it is a good idea to disable JavaScript for suspicious web pages. Then a fixed version has to be developed and distributed to all users, which can take some time. by anti-virus companies that then inform the web browser developers. The developers of web browsers like Google, Mozilla, Apple close those vulnerabilities when they get to know them, but a number of vulnerabilities occur as "zero day vulnerabilities" which means that they are first used to attack users and then they get notices, e.g. Modern web browsers use a sandbox system that should prevent such code from causing damage, but again these systems aren't perfect and hackers may find ways to escape from the sandbox and infect your system. This means that simply browsing a web site with a web browser that has a remote code execution vulnerability could in the worst case lead to an attacker being able to execute code with the permission of the web browser. Web browser are programs that can have vulnerabilities just like any other software.
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