Hotmail is claiming it can now tackle its biggest security issues with a way to send and receive active e-mail messages.
According to Dick Craddock, Group Program Manager at Microsoft Windows Live, until now there has been no way to run JavaScript code in e-mail messages in such a way that the code was isolated and not allowed to do malicious things on users' computer. "Hotmail is solving this problem with its new Active Views platform, technology that allows senders to run code securely in their e-mail messages." According to Hotmail the system protects users and gives e-mail recipients access to information on a sender's website through forms built directly into the e-mail itself.
This keeps the content up to date and provides a more engaging and time-saving experience, Craddock said.
Orbitz and Monster.com will be the first sites to pilot this new type of e-mail message for some of their communications.
ComputerWeekly.com says...
On Hotmail it seems far too easy for an attacker to use JavaScript to take control of users' accounts. E-mail was never designed for rich media. Active Sites seems like a way for a small group of companies to send multimedia spam to Hotmail users. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to sign up the financial institutes first, as online banking is prone to phishing attacks.
