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How To Protect Against Firesheep Attacks

Posted by CmdrTaco on 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.

3 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. Defense is Easy by The_mad_linguist · · 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 Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Come on, we're all adults here.

      Meaning, you should have a Blastoise by now.

  2. slashdot's method by Lord+Ender · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Slashdot does the opposite. It redirects SSL connections to HTTP. They must want their users' accounts to be hijacked... and their privacy to be invaded.

    --
    A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.