Passwords Pulled Out of Thin Air Via Wi-Fi
A speaker at DefCon demonstrated live how it's possible to choose any IP address visible on an wireless network, and intercept the cookies being exchanged. That enabled him to GRAB PASSWORDS. In the demo, he used utilities called Hamster and Ferret created by Errata Security to snatch a Gmail password, but says Yahoo passwords are snatchable as well. The solution? use SSL by typing https in front of the URL instead of http (as in https://gmail.com).
(props to RealTechNews)
6:58 AM * PERMALINK * 1 comments
Comments:
it's a shame the details of the hack have been distorted the way they have... it was cookies, not passwords, that were pulled out of thin air... the cookies allowed the attacker to access the victim's webmail account and even send email posing as the victim, but not change the account password as that would have required the existing inaccessible password...
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