Believe it or not – A simple letter can mean the difference between boom or doom. Http vs https…

Believe it!

There are many types of cyberattacks where https could have prevented or mitigated the attack, primarily those involving Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks.

Real-world example: The Firesheep Attack

What happened?

Firesheep was a browser extension that allowed attackers to hijack user sessions on websites that did not enforce https for all communications.

Mechanism

Firesheep exploited insecure http connections over public Wi-Fi networks.

When a user logged into a website over http, the site often sent cookies containing session data in plain text.

An attacker using Firesheep could intercept these cookies and hijack the victim’s account, gaining access to their sessions on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and others.

Impact

• Firesheep demonstrated how easy it was to exploit insecure http connections.
• Many users’ accounts were compromised, especially on public networks.
• It highlighted the dangers of not using https for sensitive or authenticated sessions.

How https could have prevented it

• Encryption. Https encrypts all data transmitted between the browser and the server, preventing attackers from intercepting sensitive information, like session cookies.
• Session Protection. Https ensures that session cookies cannot be easily stolen or reused by attackers.
• Authentication. Https verifies the server’s identity, preventing users from unknowingly connecting to malicious intermediaries.

Outcome

After the Firesheep attack, many websites transitioned to enforcing Https for all traffic (e.g., Facebook and Twitter switched to https by default). This incident is a classic example of how Https could have prevented a significant cyberattack.