p>For Web site owners, security is a significant concern. Browsers can pose significant risks by exposing sensitive information collected during a session, such as cookies and passwords.
In response to those security concerns, Quaresso is offering a new spin on the armored browser, thanks to some commercial support from Blue Coat. Enterprise Networking Planet takes a look.
Most Web users today use their own installed browsers or VPN connections to secure their online activities. A new approach from startup Quaresso Software Technologies could change that paradigm with a novel armored browser technology that creates secured browsing sessions that are delivered via a Web site or remote server without the need for users to have the technology pre-installed.
Quaresso is leveraging intellectual property it is licensing from network optimization and security vendor Blue Coat (NASDAQ: BCSI), which also provided some seed capital to help start the new company. Both Blue Coat and Quaresso declined to provide the exact financial value of the intellectual property or the investment, though they did explain the promise of the new technology.
“What we are really trying to solve is the last mile information security problem around browsers,” Mark Elliott, Quaresso’s founder and CEO, told InternetNews.com. “Specifically we’re trying to enable enterprise Web site owners to be able to try and reduce the risk that browsers bring to the equation when those browsers connect to their Web sites.”
Quaresso’s service enables a site to deliver a secure browser on demand, Elliot said. The armored browser is a sort of browser sandbox that is initiated remotely and provides encryption for cookies, history and cache information that occurs during a user session. Elliott described the approach as providing an “ephemeral” browser that doesn’t leave any software or trace of the user session behind. The idea is that by securing the session information, private user information cannot be sniffed or stolen from the browser.
