When was the last time you accessed Facebook from a public wireless network? You’re lucky if Firesheep wasn’t around then.
Firesheep, a new Firefox extension created by developer Eric Butler, startled Internet users massively by revealing the vulnerabilities of most social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter.
Butler, when asked about his new hacking tool, said, “As soon as anyone on the network visits an insecure website known to Firesheep, their name and photo will be displayed in the window. All you have to do is double click on their name and open sesame, you will be able to log into that user’s site with their credentials”.
Firesheep grabs cookies/sessions from unsecure networks and that’s just about everything a hacker needs to masquerade as a legitimate user and gain complete access to their social networking profile. What’s scarier is the fact that the extension has the potential to identify cookies from Amazon, Google, Yahoo, Flickr and a host of other websites.
It is reported that Firesheep was downloaded over a 1000 times within an hour of its release. Firesheep has been more than an eye-opener. Security experts are reemphasizing safe networking practices and shedding light on ways to tackle Firesheep.
A few weeks back Facebook launched a new feature that lets users keep track of active sessions. This tool is more of a magnifying glass than a shield.
However, the end user would do well to be vigilant and take wi-fi seriously. Prevention’s always better than cure, isn’t it?
