Safe Internet Browsing Using a Transparent Virtual Browser

With the proliferation of Internet access across the globe, as well as the advancement of many new devices and next generation networks, there is no surprise that malware infection via web browsing is still one of the most significant threats to Internet users today. Over the past several years we have also seen the increase in advanced targeted attacks against corporations which steal intellectual property and sensitive customer information. This problem is amplified as security is bypassed for work productivity and usability, while mobile devices increasingly access sensitive information. Though many organizations are beginning to invest significantly into securing their internal corporate network, users are typically given access to the Internet for web browsing purposes, leaving the enterprise vulnerable to drive-by downloads and data exfiltration attacks. In this work we propose a new method to safely browse the Internet by redirecting web requests to a cloud-based Transparent Virtual Browser. Web browsing requests are automatically redirected to the Transparent Virtual Browser via a transparent network proxy, protecting against user configuration errors or malware running on the device. The virtual browsing session is streamed back to the user securely, while maintaining a seamless user experience. Experiments show that our architecture can isolate web-attacks from a user's machine, protecting enterprises from most of the attacks to which they are vulnerable today. Using a small user trial we tested our solution with several popular web browsers on various operating systems and report on their feedback. Our testing also shows that our prototype only incurs a small initial delay when browsing to a webpage while maintaining a seamless browsing experience for the rest of the browsing session.