Firesheep : simple HTTP session hijacking
Eric Butler, a freelance web application and software developer, has introduced a new Firefox add-on over the weekend called Firesheep that aims to highlight the lack of security surrounding person logins and cookies on well-liked websites for instance Facebook.
Firesheep can be added to Firefox just like another add-on. When set up it shows a brand new sidebar that shows information about particular person customers logged into website like Facebook when connected over an unsecured and open network. If a consumer pops up in this sidebar Firesheep allows you to login as them having a double-click of one’s mouse. It’s that simple.
Firesheep functions because of poor security on the part of the website. While a user’s username and password may be protected with SSL encryption, the cookie the website makes use of is not inside a good deal of instances when that login has been effective. So when a person has logged in it really is a straightforward job of hijacking the unprotected cookie taking around their account for that session.
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