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DIY Linux Defense Against Firesheep HTTP Hijacker for WiFi Security

Calendar Nov 15, 2010 • User Avatar Anthony Pell
1 min read
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Topics%20covered

Topics Covered

privacy protection WiFi security do-it-yourself HTTP hijacker Firesheep Linux defense
Insecurity experts at Sophos have released a Linux-based do-it-yourself defence against the HTTP hijacker known as Firesheep and said people can use it in order to browse the web safely over unencrypted WiFi. Paul Ducklin, the head of technology at Sophos has posted the defence in a blog post, and he claimed that it can be installed in 60 seconds. Firesheep is a Firefox plug-in that harvests unencrypted authentication cookies as people surf, giving hackers read and write access to users' unencrypted WiFi session data. It was developed in October by an IT security researcher to highlight exploitable cookies that contain personal information and aren't encrypted. Naturally, it sent coffee shop WiFi users into a panic attack.

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