
Know more about ImmaBe Webguard
Webguard (“IBWeb” for short) is ImmaBe’s stand-alone module that uses PHP and Javascript to perform outbound user security.
Its solutions are used by the ImmaBe platform to protect its users from cybercrime, malware and data theft, as well as prevent users from viewing inappropriate content and discourage users from browsing sites that might divert their attention from what they were looking for when navigating ImmaBe. Webguard uses a special domain list built by the security team to check every web link stored in the posted problems or contributions, and is subject to design improvements in the future. It explicitly warns the user about the risk every time s/he clicks on a flagged web link.
Most websites, including big fishes, perform only input syntax validation before the data storage process. By doing so, they only care about the security of their infrastructure.
They forgot about the user safety. Indeed, a malicious user can provide a well-formed and legit input that might affect the user’s safety or interest in the current website s/he’s browsing.
An obvious example are junk comments we see for instance on Facebook. ImmaBe is built and run by the user; therefore his/her safety and interest are our priority.
Webguard was originally written in the project Secure Forwading by Pradeep Samuel, Software Engineering student at Concordia University, back in 2013 as part of Landry’s coding series for his blog http://codijuana.blogspot.com. Then 2 years later, Landry upgraded the code to include some core functionnalities of the ImmaBe Webguard. For security purposes, the source code remains private but open to contributions under acceptance and understanding of a privacy agreement.