We had some time today to do a review on Haute Secure which is kinda still in its beta stages. But anyway, Haute Secure looks promising as the team is formed by security experts previously working at Microsoft and at the United States Department of Defence. Pretty cool huh?

Towards the end of 2007, we have seen many websites being compromised by malicious codes with either the intention to load a spyware or to commit a cyber crime. This type of attack pattern is given by the term “drive-by-downloads” in which a malware is automatically downloaded and executed without the knowledge of the user. Let’s see whether Haute Secure does work its charm.

Haute Secure Review

“Source image from HauteSecure.com”

Haute Secure is designed to protect users from web-based malware attack by monitoring the contents of a website. Haute Secure consists of three key components. The threat warnings and reputation ratings component let’s you know before hand whether a link in the search engine result is safe to visit. The dynamic data protection component is a pattern recognition scanner which will be able to pop-up an alert if there is a potential threat. With the community contribution component, you will be able to submit a rating for a particular website and thus contribute to the overall website block list.

Installing Haute Secure

We downloaded HauteSecure_2.0_r1906.exe from the download section. The installer is 3.44mb in size. There is no problem while installation. For your information, Haute Secure supports Microsoft Windows Vista and there is a 64-bit version available too.

Haute Secure Memory Usage

Looking at the running processes, Haute Secure(CtPopup.exe) uses around 25mb of memory. It was the biggest user when no major application was opened.

Testing Haute Secure

After restarting you get a blue Haute Secure orb sitting on your taskbar. Clicking it once, brings up Haute Secure control panel. Although there is nothing much you can do besides managing your subscription, getting help and testing Haute Secure. Right-clicking on the icon gives you the option to disable Haute Secure. Before it can get disabled, you need to key in 8 alpha-numeric for securiy purposes.

Okay, it’s time to test this guy out. Therefore we paid a malware exploited site a visit. Guess what? Haute Secure manage to block our web browser from further accessing the site. A non-obtrusive red alert window popped-up just above the right bottom corner of the screen.

Now the blue Haute Secure taskbar icon turns into red colour. Clicking on it brings up a menu if you intend to unblock the site.

Conclusion

We find Haute Secure a very good companion to have while browsing the internet. Now with Haute Secure, you will have the added first layer protection. There you go, less worries with malwares. Haute Secure is free by the way. =)

Links

• Haute Secure Official Site
• Haute Secure Download Section