HOW TO: Protect Yourself From Firesheep With a VPN
A wildly popular new bit of malicious code called Firesheep is making the rounds among script kiddies and black-hat hackers; it allows them to access the cookies of any user on a non-password-protected wireless network. Once the ne’er-do-well in question is on the same public network as you, he or she can save and use your cookies to access your accounts (e-mail, Facebook and many other types of accounts, as well) through a point-and-click graphic interface.
In the words of the person who created Firesheep, “As soon as anyone on the network visits an insecure website [Facebook, Gmail, etc.] known to Firesheep, their name and photo will be displayed [in the Firesheep interface]. Double-click on someone, and you’re instantly logged in as them.”
For businesses with remote employees, Firesheep is a particular danger, as it potentially compromises your company’s data and accounts any time a worker logs in from a coffee shop, Internet cafe or other public network.
The practice is known as session hijacking; if you’d like more information on how the code works, check out this post on Firesheep’s technical details.
