Microsoft said this week that Internet Explorer 7 will finally provide support for international domain names (IDN), detailing a number of security measures it will put into place to prevent phishing and spoofing attacks.
The problem with IDN stems from its use of the Unicode character set to enable domain names that include international letters. Unicode URLs must be converted by a Web browser into a format called "Punycode," which opens the door for a malicious Web site to mimic a trusted URL, including its SSL security certificate.
If IE7 does display a domain name in Punycode form rather than localized, an information bar will appear to notify the user. From the bar, a user can choose to add the language to their list of allowed scripts.
Beta 2 of IE7, due early next year, will include the IDN changes.
For those not interested in visiting international domain names and wanting to avoid any risk, Microsoft has added an "International" section to the Internet Control Panel that contains an option to disable the feature entirely and revert back to IE6 behavior.
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