The grave risk of Internet users unwittingly letting out their private & sometimes confidential details while using unencrypted networks has been brought to focus by at least two startling incidents.
Back in May, Google candidly admitted that its Street View data collection cars inadvertently collected and stored "payload data from unencrypted WiFi networks, but not from networks that were encrypted". More recently a Firefox extension called Firesheep exposed the vulnerability of HTTP browsing in aiding identity spoofing.
Analyzing the Firesheep extension, Jeff Atwood makes the following recommendations to protect yourself -
Back in May, Google candidly admitted that its Street View data collection cars inadvertently collected and stored "payload data from unencrypted WiFi networks, but not from networks that were encrypted". More recently a Firefox extension called Firesheep exposed the vulnerability of HTTP browsing in aiding identity spoofing.
Analyzing the Firesheep extension, Jeff Atwood makes the following recommendations to protect yourself -
- We should be very careful how we browse on unencrypted wireless networks.
- Get in the habit of accessing your web mail through HTTPS
- Lobby the websites you use to offer HTTPS browsing.
