New Internet Explorer could pose risks to users
February 7, 2006
There are concerns that the coming release of Internet Explorer 7 later this year, could bring a new wave of phishing scams and confusion about the identity of websites.
While only beta versions of Internet Explorer 7 are currently available, a feature built into IE7 is the ability to recognise and use domains with non-English alphabets, could cause havoc in general use.
The first concern is that different domains in different alphabets could look exactly the same.
For example, cccp.com will look the same in both English and Cyrillic alphabets, but could exist as different domains, each one registered in the different alphabets.
The second concern is that this could cause an increase of problems with phishing scams - when users are directed to a website pretending to a legitimate site, that often asks for personal and financial information, which can be then abused or resold on the black market.
With the ability for different domain names registered in different languages to look the same, this could create very real confusion for internet users in the near future.
While some other browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox, already have support for non-English alphabets, the dominant market share of Internet Explorer means that any problems already occuring, are likely to become intensified.