Fortra Associate Director of Security R&D, Tyler Reguly, was included in a recent SecurityWeek article exploring the controversy known as “BrowserGate,” which accused LinkedIn of illegally spying on users by scanning their browsers. The article draws on Tyler’s independent research and testing, which originated in his Fortra blog post analyzing the claims. In his assessment, Tyler explains that LinkedIn is using a common JavaScript technique called resource probing to check for the presence of certain browser extensions, not scanning users’ computers or deploying malicious code. His findings helped temper more sensational claims while highlighting the need for transparency around user notification.
Originally published in SecurityWeek.
Excerpt: “Yes, LinkedIn was probing for a lot of extensions, but there was no scanning of your computer and no malicious code, just a simple JavaScript technique to determine if the extension was there.”
