About protection of financial transactions and online purchases

To provide protection for confidential data that you enter on websites of banks and payment systems (such as bank card numbers and passwords for accessing online banking services), as well as to prevent funds from being stolen when you make online payments, Kaspersky Small Office Security prompts you to open such websites in Protected Browser.

Protected Browser is a special browser operating mode designed to protect your data as you access bank or payment system websites. Protected Browser is started in an isolated environment to prevent other applications from injecting their code into the process of Protected Browser. Kaspersky Small Office Security creates special profiles for the Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome browsers to prevent third-party add-ons from affecting the operation of Protected Browser. The application does not affect your data that the browsers may save in the profiles created for them.

Browsers that do not meet the software requirements cannot operate in Protected Browser mode. Instead of such browsers, either Internet Explorer or another browser configured in application settings starts in Protected Browser mode.

In Protected Browser mode, the application provides protection against the following types of threats:

• Untrusted modules. The application runs a check for untrusted modules every time you visit a bank or payment system website.
• Rootkits. The application scans for rootkits at Protected Browser startup.
• Known operating system vulnerabilities. The application scans for operating system vulnerabilities at Protected Browser startup.
• Invalid certificates of bank or payment system websites. The application checks certificates when you visit a bank or payment system website. The check is performed against a database of compromised certificates.

When you open a website in Protected Browser, a frame appears on the borders of the browser window. The color of the frame indicates the protection status.

The frame of the browser window can display the following color indications:

• Green frame. Signifies that all checks have been performed successfully. You can continue using Protected Browser.
• Yellow frame. Signifies that checks have revealed security problems that need to be resolved.

  The application can detect the following threats and security problems:

  • Untrusted module. Computer scanning and disinfection is required.
  • Rootkit. Computer scanning and disinfection is required.
  • Operating system vulnerability. Operating system updates need to be installed.
  • Invalid certificate of a bank or payment system website.

  If you do not eliminate the threats detected, the security of the bank or payment system website connection session is not guaranteed. Events involving the launch and use of Protected Browser with reduced protection are recorded in the Windows event log.

  The yellow color of the frame may also signify that Protected Browser cannot be started due to technical limitations. For example, a third-party hypervisor is running or your computer does not support hardware virtualization technology.

To enable interaction with pages of protected websites, Kaspersky Total Security embeds a specially configured script into pages of websites. The application can embed the script either on its own or with the help of the Kaspersky Protection extension. The extension is also required for full support of Protected Browser. If the extension is not installed, the browser prompts you to install it at the first startup in Protected Browser mode. If you choose not to install the Kaspersky Protection extension, you can install it later.

Protected Browser cannot be run if the Enable Self-Defense check box is cleared in the Self-Defense subsection of the Advanced Settings section of the application settings window.

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