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Technology is a double edged sword. On the one hand, it offers you amazing facilities and lets you do your work easily and quickly. On the other hand, it opens up many issues which can be dangerous to the users and which are hitherto unheard of. If you are using Wi-Fi to access internet or web based email, the security of the information you exchange could be at great risk, according to an IDG News wire report.
If you are using any email services or social networking sites, wherein you need to supply you username and password, and if you are using Wi-Fi to access these, you are in danger. Of course, the user name and password information you send across are encrypted and it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible to track that. But due to the high cost involved, companies do not encrypt the rest of the information exchanged between a web site and a browser. A seasoned hacker can pick up the information exchanged between a wireless router and a computer with the help of a simple packet sniffer.
When the hacker gets access to this data, he can get inside a person’s account by using cookies. Cookies are the bits of data sent to a browser by a Web site to remember certain information about users, such as when they last logged in. these cookies consist of a vital piece of information called “section identifier” using which, the hacker can gain access to the person’s account.
The worst part is, if you are using an application earlier than Web 2.0, the hacker can even change your password. But if you are using a Web 2.0 application, chances are, the hacker may not be able to change the password. This is because many Web 2.0 applications ask for a second login when changing the password.
Even if the hacker is not able to access the account information, he can still read emails and do other malicious activities with the help of this hacking. It can still pose significant security threats as most users have the habit of keeping their sensitive information in their emails. He can also direct the victim to another of web page which is called “Sidejacking”
So what’s the remedy? Stop using the Wi-Fi service? Not really. According to the report, the user only needs to exercise more caution when he is accessing the internet from Wi-Fi spots. To start with, he can use only those Wi-Fi hotspots that use VPN (virtual private networking) or SSL (secure sockets layer) to access their accounts.
Raju Shanbhag is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
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