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roger_grimes
Columnist

Hacking Gmail and other insecure SSL sites

Analysis
Aug 06, 20071 min
Data and Information SecuritySecurity

Rob Graham demonstrated hacking Google's gmail by sniffing the unprotected cookie. Click here for the article. Graham showed his hack at the Black Hat USA 2007 conference last week. He demonstrated his method by taking over some innocent conference goer's gmail account. Essentially, the hack works by sniffing the user's web site cookie in transit to the user before SSL/TLS has been enabled. Stealing the cookie,

Rob Graham demonstrated hacking Google’s gmail by sniffing the unprotected cookie.

Click here for the article.

Graham showed his hack at the Black Hat USA 2007 conference last week. He demonstrated his method by taking over some innocent conference goer’s gmail account.

Essentially, the hack works by sniffing the user’s web site cookie in transit to the user before SSL/TLS has been enabled. Stealing the cookie, the intruder can now impersonate the user after the user successfully logs in. The vulnerability happens because SSL/TLS is not enabled until after the user’s cookie is passed, instead of before like it should.

roger_grimes
Columnist

Roger A. Grimes is a contributing editor. Roger holds more than 40 computer certifications and has authored ten books on computer security. He has been fighting malware and malicious hackers since 1987, beginning with disassembling early DOS viruses. He specializes in protecting host computers from hackers and malware, and consults to companies from the Fortune 100 to small businesses. A frequent industry speaker and educator, Roger currently works for KnowBe4 as the Data-Driven Defense Evangelist and is the author of Cryptography Apocalypse.

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