Black Hat: Microsoft's killbit under the microscope
InternetNews | at | by Mike
Microsoft has long dealt with insecure ActiveX (define) controls through what's known as a killbit, a means in its Internet Explorer browser of limiting the danger by locking out specific ActiveX controls.
Until this week, getting visibility into the killbit itself was not an easy task. Thanks to a new tool called Killbit Visualizer, released Wednesday here at the Black Hat security conference, that's no longer the case -- providing some insight into how Microsoft relies on killbits to tackle complex security issues, and where some of their shortcomings might be.