How To Protect Against Firesheep Attacks

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How To Protect Against Firesheep Attacks

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday October 27, 2010 @05:12AM from the oh-that-helps-sure dept.

Monday we mentioned Firesheep, a plug-in that trivializes ID spoofing on social networks. Since then various security researches have come out to suggest How to Protect Yourself against Firesheep Attacks (submitted by Batblue). Of course the advice is pretty obvious: Don't use free Wi-Fi, use SSL, or a VPN. It seems to me that the big sites should start by redirecting all non-SSL traffic to https automatically. If you want to be insecure, you'd have to explicitly state that you can't encrypt for some reason.

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Let's just encrypt everything all the time by Anonymous Coward · 2010-10-27 05:12 · Score: 1, Funny

Did I mention I sell SSL certificates?
Defense is Easy by The_mad_linguist · 2010-10-27 05:17 · Score: 5, Funny

All you really need to do is stay out of the tall grass on Route 32. If you do have a firesheep attack, I recommend sending out a water type like wartortle.
1. Re:Defense is Easy by idontgno · 2010-10-27 05:46 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Blastoise, I choose you!
  Blastoise uses "SSL Fountain"!
  It's super effective!
  
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2. Re:Defense is Easy by Monkeedude1212 · 2010-10-27 06:58 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Come on, we're all adults here.
  Meaning, you should have a Blastoise by now.
Re:slashdot's method by astrashe · 2010-10-27 05:41 · Score: 2, Funny

My precious, precious karma. :)
Re:slashdot's method by NatasRevol · 2010-10-27 05:55 · Score: 3, Funny

I *did* make the same post!

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Re:how about by Anonymous Coward · 2010-10-27 06:02 · Score: 1, Funny

simply not using social networks?
*gasp* HERETIC!!!
Re:slashdot's method by ALeavitt · 2010-10-27 06:19 · Score: 2, Funny

What kind of idiot would use his real name for a Slashdot account?

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Re:slashdot's method by betterunixthanunix · 2010-10-27 06:43 · Score: 2, Funny

Oh the horror! You might look like an idiot on Slashdot of all places!

In all seriousness, people should not be using Facebook in a way that could cause any damage to them if their accounts are hijacked. Facebook is a toy, and treating it like anything other than a toy is asking for trouble.

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