Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Security and Technology : Hosting Security and Technology Tutorials : How To: Remove links inserted by client spamware

[Marque]

Spyware is everywhere nowdays and it has now found exploits in Internet Explorer where it can find specific words in your HTML documents and link them to other sites.

This is all done from the client's computer. When internet explorer starts, the spyware goes to work searching though each page for specific keywords that it then replaces the the normal text with its own hyperlinks, pointing to a different site, and taking your traffic away from your site.

This is deceiving because users do not know that your website is not the one displaying the link, which in turn makes the user believe that your website endorses the page it is linking to.

There is a very simple way of preventing this behavior by inserting a single meta tag. Use the following code and it will stop the spyware from creating its own links on your site:

<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="true" />

Hope this helps!

[Sevoma]

Intresting. Why does it ignore pages with that? Thanks.

[bear]

It'll only work if the "spyware" is IE, and the version before they removed "Smart Tags" (which were anything but). There is an program called "Top Text" that will do this as well (among others), and the above mentioned tag does nothing to prevent that.

[cmmdk]

i dont understand this?

[cmmdk]

Should i put that code into my webpages HTML?

And what does it do?

[bear]

Originally posted by cmmdk
i dont understand this?

You mean about Smart Tags? Microsoft had a brainstorm some time ago to include a method of highlighting certain keywords in some of their programs (notably Internet Explorer), causing them to link to whomever bought that keyword. This would cause a page to display on *your* web site with links you didn't place in the original document, and you would have no control over it. The link could potentially be to your competition, but it would appear to the visitor that you coded it into the page.
The 'MSSmartTagsPreventParsing' bit, was supposed to keep the links from working on your pages. MS eventually (amidst loud complaining) removed this "feature" from IE, although there are probably many installed versions of it running still.

[cmmdk]

okay that gives more meaning...
Thx

[AHFBWEB]

Sorry to burst anyones bubbe, but this tag is useless. As mentioned it was to be the tag to prevent microsoft from placing text links on your site, since MS dropped this idea there is absolutely no reason to use this meta tag as it does not prevent any existing theftware apps.

Dave

[Sheps]

Dave B: You should know, as like everyone else, that once Microsoft introduces a new feature, it opens a hole. This feature allowed spyware to fool IE into thinking the "word" was a sponsored link for Microsoft.

[Marque]

The tag is not useless as IE 6 that has not been patched still supports the smart tags. Spamware still uses these to alter peoples websites and still see it on a daily basis with customers.

There is an program called "Top Text" that will do this as well (among others), and the above mentioned tag does nothing to prevent that.

The tag does in fact work as I have tested it both for IE ver 5 - 6, as well as IE on the mac. If the tag was worthless and did nothing at all, then why would it be the first meta tag listed in this forum's source?

[bear]

Originally posted by Marque
The tag does in fact work as I have tested it both for IE ver 5 - 6, as well as IE on the mac. If the tag was worthless and did nothing at all, then why would it be the first meta tag listed in this forum's source?

If you re-read what you quoted from me, you would see I refer to "Toptext" specifically. This tag does nothing to prevent that spyware from functioning.

As for why WHT has this in the tags, it could just be residual from when MS introduced it, or, once again, as I said already, that there are still version around that may have it.

[Marque]

Thats weird because toptext is how I found out about this function in IE and remember the tag removing the links.

Perhaps they found a way around it, or maybe they are modifing IE when it is installed on the system.