Privacy, Security & Virus Information

Why not to save your Firefox password

In an ideal world every computer owner and user would have themselves a global password which they would use to log in to any e-mail address or other applications that they used. After all why go to all that trouble to change passwords every few months or even weeks, or even have a separate password for every application. Juggling all of these different passwords would be nothing less than a virtual nightmare.

However with all that is going on in the world of computers, it seems a cruel hard fact that computer owners will need to be considerably less trusting in the their " it can't happen to me" mind set and take the subject of password protection considerably more seriously.

The recent news that surfers who use the increasingly popular Firefox browser have fallen victim to a highly sophisticated, synchronized trojan horse attack, accessed through their password, only goes to strengthen the theory.

In the wake of the attack, internet security experts at Firefox have passed on a very strong message to their users advising them, at least for the meantime, not to use the " do you wish to save your password?" feature, as it has been recognised as an easy entry point for computer hackers, easily hacked by malware programs specially set up for that purpose alone.

The particular malware used in the attack was the Trojan-PWS-Nslog, which is capable of reaching the password through its ability to deactivate the Firefox code that protects saved passwords.

Once an entry password has been compromised, in Firefox or any other software, then its open day for the hackers, and all your personal files are at their beck and call. The only sign that a Firefox browser's security has been compromised is when the computer ceases to request that the surfer save their password. The reason why is that the password is no longer theirs, because it belongs to the hackers!

The Firefox attack is just another piece of evidence that hacking attacks are part and parcel of an internet users way of life. Having to juggle passwords will be a royal pain in the cyber neck and it won't be too long before users will revert to using a global password with all the risks that that entails.

All of these problems can be mostly averted if computer owners would make the minimal investment of installing a reliable anti-virus software program that would effectively block access to any hacker wishing to play their evil trade.

 

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