[News] - How can I protect my laptop from wireless hacking?
Hi guys! You know, I like to sit in the cafe and do different stuff on my laptop, from work to entertainment. But recently I've heard about the Firesheep add-on for Mozilla Firefox that allows bad guys to hack into your laptop by means of WiFi connection. Can I avoid it?
Hello Jared!
If you like to spend afternoons utilizing your portable computer in a cozy cafe with WiFi hotspot and open connection, you are probably not the only person who is logged in to your Facebook, Twitter or eBay personal account. Mozilla Firefox add-on called Firesheep lets its exploiters sneak some peeks at browser actions of other people if they are all using the same cordless network together. While the wrongful viewers cannot have any glimpse on secured web pages, multiple websites secure only the login pages. After you are logged in, your constant presence is maintained solely through the cookies, which are the packets of information that your own browser stores to always keep track of all your browsing necessities. Still Firesheep lets its exploiters copy your cookies, thus after that any website you are signing in cannot see the distinction between you and the account owner, granting you the full access to his or her profile. You can't prevent Firesheep from doing what it does, unless you'll start to smash down all laptops around you. I hope you won't do that :) Still you can secure yourself. To make this happen you can block the WiFi signal around your laptop thus protecting it from the outside interference. |
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