IFRAME is a security risk???

Ok, I have just read the latest in “IFRAME Security” articles and had to write something about it. While going through my usual RSS feeds, I stumbled onto this article, which tries to summarize why “iframes are a security risk”. Not to pick on the specific article, but this is not the first time that I have seen this approach. More notably, we have lately been faced with a barrage of sites that are detected by some AV engines as having a virus on them, when the detection is usually named “xxx-IFRAME-xxx”.

Scrutinizing the mere existence of an IFRAME element (as we all remember – a standard HTML element), sounds pretty bad. Now, we were asking ourselves, how come this has become a security threat? The answer is simpler and more alarming that you might have thought – we are shooting the messenger (excuse the pun…). Simply because an IFRAME element exists (or is dynamically created) in a page, does not mean that it contains malicious content. But since old-tech security products are having a hard time detecting web-bourne crimeware and malware these days (dynamic code obfuscation, evasive techniques, etc…), they set their radars to shoot down the iframe elements. What’s next? Script tags…

Just to set things straight – the security model we should be looking at should detect actual malicious code in real-time. The source (URL, Domain, etc…) should not matter, and neither should  the looks (iframe, packed code, etc…). By analyzing the true intent of the code, one can be certain that the security policy sought after is really implemented.

That’s it for this week’s rants-and-raves, see you next week in the Greek ICT conference in Athens…