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Spam in RSS feeds pales in comparison to the possible security concerns that could be in RSS' future, while an annoyance to the search engines. The real concern relates to security, where content publishers dynamically generate nonsensical feeds stuffed with keywords, and while some have mentioned the emergence of RSS spam. The not so good, along with the good comes. RSS is becoming a tool that is continuously being used by the general population, what was once only known as a "techie tool". RSS is growing at a lightening speed.

Security Implications Related to RSS.

And executables and can be thought of in similar terms to email attachments, power point presentations, mp3 files, word documents, things like images, the enclosure tag is essentially used to link to file types. In fact the majority of RSS feeds do not even use the enclosure tag, the enclosure field in itself is not the problem. Is where the vulnerabilities lie, specifically the "enclosure" field which has launched the podcasting phenomenon, the expansion capabilities of the RSS specification. The power and extendibility of RSS in its simplest form is also its achilles heel. Hackers are taking notice, as publishers are quickly finding innovative uses for RSS feeds. As RSS gains momentum security fears loom large.

Their is still the inherent risk of a infected file being distributed, viruses and spy applications via RSS less prevalent, and while it might make the distribution of malware, most people do not feel that the risk is significant because people "choose" the content that they receive. But also has created cause for concern, the fact that RSS can be used to distribute these file types has opened a myriad of doors to users of the syndication standard.

The problem is one of both technology and lack of education.

Or pod-catchers automatically download the information contained in the enclosure field regardless of its file type or source, news aggregators, the danger lies in the fact that many RSS readers.

Screening or authentication capabilities and many automatically download enclosures, but few have had the forethought to include filtering, most RSS developers acknowledge the risks associated with the enclosure field.

FeedDemon also contains hard-coded warnings related to specific file types. FeedDemon uses an editable safelist of file types as well as allowing users to monitor what files are automatically downloaded. Designing FeedDemon with security in mind, nick Bradbury of Bradsoft/NewsGator seems to be proactive.

ByteScout does not automatically download anything without user intervention for each download, developers of ByteScout took a different approach to the handling of enclosure files.

Be sure to examine how your RSS reader handles files contained in the enclosure field of an RSS feed. Some will automatically download enclosures without warning or any thoughts of security, aggregators and podcatchers consider the possible security implications associated with RSS feeds and podcasts, not all RSS readers, unfortunately.

There is ample time and action that can avert potential problems, computer viruses and malware are cause for legitimate concern. However proactive users and conscientious developers can easily subvert the risk by taking precautions seriously, their is cause for concern. The security risks increase with it, with the increased use of RSS and podcasting.