Privacy, Security & Virus Information

Have you ever had your cookies jacked?

People involved in the internet like to come up with expressions that mere lay people will fail to understand or simply might not want to. The latest expression developed by a well known security researcher has come up with a new one and is “cookie jacking”. Cookie jacking describes a way of hijacking a web surfer’s sensitive information from the cookies gathered and stored in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Web browser.

Fears are that the 'cookiejacking' technique could be exploited to access personal information for those who surf using Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, many other online services as well as all of them together. When questioned on the subject of cookie jacking, a leading Microsoft spokesman said that the for the time being the computer software giant is not considering cookie jacking a real risk.

The technique exploits a flaw that bypasses the Security Zone protection in Internet Explorer to enable the attacker to capture the contents of cookies that should not be exposed.

For those who are unaware or have forgotten a Cookie is a small text file that can be used by any Web browser or application to store information such as user account credentials for site authentication or surfer site preferences.

The reason for Microsoft’s apparent indifference to the risks of cookie jacking is that they are well aware, as most hackers are also, that most cookies contain text that are of little value. However surfers who are constantly logged on to sites such as Facebook, Twitter, or Gmail, will have accessible or “high- jackable” cookies that store user account information, This information is needed to authenticate passwords and user names so that the surfer us not required to log in every time. If a hacker is capable of hijacking these cookies, they then have the ability to access the sensitive data that can be used to steal information.

Security experts no confirm that the 'cookiejacking' technique can do some damage and once again it is very important for web surfers to button up all aspects of their internet security. That means installing the latest and most powerful anti-virus program you can find. That way you will never need to worry about your cookies and if they are being jacked ever again.

 

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