Microsoft Research is developing a new Browser Protection technology called “Browser Shield” to help protect Internet Explorer and the Operating System from exploits. An article published on the Microsoft Research web site entitled, “Browsers: Helping Make the Web Safe for Surfers” describes the goal of the research project and the types of protection methods Browser Shield incorporates.

The research project which was started in the spring of 2005, is examining ways to inspect and cleanse dynamic HTML and script code in web pages so users browsers are not exploited. Other Microsoft groups are looking at incorporating this technology into other products such as the ISA Server team, Windows Live team,IE team, and other development teams.

While Microsoft works on completing this research project and incorporating the benefits into it’s product lines, there is technology available now which can assist in protecting the Operating Systems from exploits contracted through a Web browser and other software applications. 

You can freely download an application called ”Sandboxie” (which originally stands for ‘Sandbox IE’), which executes Internet Explorer, Firefox, and other applications in a restricted virtual sandbox on the Windows operating system. This prevents malware and other exploit scripts from infecting the Web browser and OS. 

Technical savvy Firefox users can also install a Firefox extension called “NoScript” which prevents the execution of web page scripts unless they are explicitly allowed execution by adding them to an ‘approved site list’ or selecting ‘allow one time’.

Until Microsoft incorporates BrowserShield into it’s products in the future (along with it’s already released phishing filter technology for IE), safer browsing may have to come from third party applications and browser plug-ins.