Stress Testing Your Web Browser

The security conscious folks at Mozilla have announced that they will release a set of tools that they themselves use to help secure the Firefox browser. The tool set contains fuzzers, which generate a large amount of input with the goal of testing a piece of software's robustness and identifying its vulnerabilities.

These tools have been used internally by Mozilla developers and testers for quite some time now and will soon be available to the general public. Already released is jsfunfuzz, a fuzzer which tests the stability and safety of a browser's Javascript engine. Usable with not only Firefox, the tool set can be utilized to put many of the major web browsers to the test. The fuzzers will make it simpler for hackers to find flaws in a browser, but in the long run should benefit the public as a whole by quickly exposing vulnerabilities and allowing browser manufacturers to plug these holes in a more timely fashion.

According to Mozilla security guru Window Snyder, the company worked with the likes of Microsoft, Mozilla, and Opera to ensure that the soon-to-be-released tools did not adversely affect their respective browsers. Snyder stated that the other vendors "reviewed the tool and let us know that they were okay with the release."