Earlier today I was listening to the SitePoint podcast #87 when they started talking about a new Firefox extension called “firesheep.” Apparently this program makes use of packet sniffing to hijack open, insecure session over unprotected Wi-Fi access points.
In and of itself the threat of packet sniffing is nothing new, and really the only protection against this is to either never use open Wi-Fi points or only log into websites that use https and possess an SSL certificate. What is new, however, is that this program makes it far more easy to hijack open sessions than it was in the past so that almost anyone can do it.
Firesheep, I suppose, was released with the intent of forcing developers to make sessions more secure, but in doing so open the door to a much greater number of people being able to grab up people’s private accounts at least temporarily for nefarious purposes in public places like coffee shops. If you use FireSheep you’ll literally be able to see everyone on your open networking that’s logged into sites like Facebook, and by clicking on their name and picture log directly into their account.
In response to Firesheep’s release, however, another firefox addon has come out specifically for detecting when someone on the network is using Firesheep called BlackSheep. This gives you the opportunity to at least have a fair chance of catching, and smacking that nerdy kid looking kid across the room that’s messing around with your interwebs.
