Thaindian News

By Ranjan Bhaduri
Oct 26, (THAINDIAN NEWS) The privacy of the Internet users has come under stake once again with a new Firefox extension that has been made available for all. The name of the extension is Firesheep and the extension enables hacking the Facebook and Twitter accounts of other users. This may sound frightening to many and it is to an extent. The maker of this new extension is Eric Butler a software developer based in Seattle. He claims that using this plug in a person can hack the user session of others through a open WiFi network. Those who have tried the extension have been amazed to see that it actually works as advertised under most circumstances.

Firesheep can target as many as 26 web based services including some of the most popular social networking services. Even some of the blogging services have not been spared from its reach. The more dangerous aspect of the extension is that other hackers can actually customize it and thereafter can target many other web services not targeted by its original developer. The extension itself sounds scary and once again points out to the security hassles of using Wi Fi networks. It works as a packet sniffer which is capable of detecting unencrypted Web traffic passing through open Wi Fi connection between personal computers and a WiFi router.

The application gets activated when a person logs in any of the 26 sites listed in the database using the WiFi network. The plug in has caused mass interest and by ow it has been offloaded over 100000 times. The concern is about its improper use by malicious hackers.