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Unit 1 Assignment 1.15 Cookie Poisoning

Decent Essays

1.14 Buffer Overflow
A buffer overflow attack is done by deliberately entering more data than a program was written to handle. Buffer overflow attacks exploit a lack of boundary checking on the size of input being stored in a buffer. The extra data will overflow the memory set aside to accept it and overwrite another region of memory that was meant to hold some of the program’s instructions. The effect is a cascade, which can eventually halt the application or the system it is running on. The newly introduced values can be new instructions, which could give the attacker control of the target computer depending on what was input. Just about every system is vulnerable to buffer overflows. For example, if a hacker sends an email to a Microsoft Outlook user using an address that is longer than 256 characters, he will force the buffer to overflow. The recipient wouldn’t even have to open the e-mail for this type of attack to be successful; the attack is successful as soon as the message is downloaded from the server. Microsoft quickly released a patch for this issue after it was discovered in October 2000 (James C. Foster, 2005)
1.15 Cookie Poisoning …show more content…

The hacker is usually a registered customer and is familiar with the application in question. The hacker may alter a cookie stored on her computer and send it back to the Web site. Because the application does not expect changes to the cookie, it may process the poisoned cookie. The effects are usually the changing of fixed data fields, such as changing prices on an e-commerce site or changing the identity of the user logged in to the site—or anyone else the hacker chooses. The hacker is then able to perform transactions using someone else’s account information. The ability to actually perform this hack is actually as a result of poor encryption techniques on the Web developer’s

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