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Firesheep: Easy HTTP session hijacking from within Firefox

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Re: Firesheep: Easy HTTP session hijacking from within Firefox

#141
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The encryption is between your client and the AP. Uaually everything after that is standard IP.

That's what I thought -- enough to protect against fellow wireless sharers, but not the hosting establishment or path through their ISP to a website.

No, you misunderstood. It's enough to protect you against random people sniffing wireless packets. Not other people that are on your network.

Re: Firesheep: Easy HTTP session hijacking from within Firefox

#142

For anyone who has SSH access to a server (but not VPN) and is wondering what to do when you need some security in a pinch, here is a quick fix... Open an ssh connection to a server you have access to using something like the following: ssh -ND 8887 -p 22 rufus@12.120.186.8 where 8887 is the port on your laptop that you will tunnel through, -p 22 is the port the ssh server is on (22 is the default but I use a differe…

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Silence Is Defeat provides SSH accounts for a small donation.

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Re: Firesheep: Easy HTTP session hijacking from within Firefox

#143
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there are also wildcard certificates that match all subdomains, but are rather more expensive.

Wildcard certificates are available for USD $49.90 from StartSSL ( http://www.startssl.com/?app=40 ), which is rather more expensive than free, but shouldn’t be a hardship.

The only downside to wildcard certs through StartSSL is that getting one requires high-resolution proof of personal identity, to be kept on file outside local jurisdiction (the company's based in Israel) until the cert's final renewal or revocation, plus seven years.

I admire their model of only charging for operations which require human intervention, like identity validation, but handing over that degree of documentation for that amount of time requires a lot of trust, not just of the company as it currently exists, but as it will exist in the far future.

If there was a way to validate organizations which wasn't layered on top of an earlier validation of an individual, or if their decentralized web-of-trust was usable for class 2/wildcard certs, I'd be a big fan.

As it is, there's no reason not to use Start for class 1, single-domain certs, for which the validation is automated and reasonable.

Re: Firesheep: Easy HTTP session hijacking from within Firefox

#144
post #13

Nice . A solid demonstration to show next time your webmaster doesn't want to set up SSL everywhere. That said, the current cartel-like setup of certificate authorities (protection money and everything!) makes SSL annoying and expensive if you want the browser to not have a fit. Especially for small-scale projects. But there's really no excuse for larger sites.

HTTPS also needs distinct IP addresses for distinct hostnames, so that the HTTP handshake, in which the Host: header appears, is already protected by an encrypted channel. No more having multiple websites on one IP address.

Re: Firesheep: Easy HTTP session hijacking from within Firefox

#145
post #30

Thanks to the EFF and the Tor Project we need not worry as much thanks to their HTTPS Everywhere project, a plugin for Firefox: http://www.eff.org/https-everywhere/ Any questions: http://www.eff.org/https-everywhere/faq

I highly dislike the title of it. It is not HTTPS everywhere, it is "HTTPS on sites we know it is possible on".

Re: Firesheep: Easy HTTP session hijacking from within Firefox

#146
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I thought -- enough to protect against fellow wireless sharers, but not the hosting establishment or path through their ISP to a website.

No, you misunderstood. It's enough to protect you against random people sniffing wireless packets. Not other people that are on your network.

Your terminology "the network" or "your network" is still unclear; encryption to the AP could be unique per wireless network client, or not. If it is unique per client -- and it is my belief that recent standards, like WPA2 at least, provide this -- then casual passive eavesdropping by other wireless clients (as with the FireSheep tool) is thwarted. (And that's what most people are most concerned about.)

Are you suggesting that no generation of WEP or WPA protects against other authorized wireless users of the same AP, because they're "on your network"?

[rewritten completely to seek clarification]

Re: Firesheep: Easy HTTP session hijacking from within Firefox

#147
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I thought -- enough to protect against fellow wireless sharers, but not the hosting establishment or path through their ISP to a website.

No, you misunderstood. It's enough to protect you against random people sniffing wireless packets. Not other people that are on your network.

Sorry, did not follow this part - "Not other people that are on your network.". Care to elaborate?

Re: Firesheep: Easy HTTP session hijacking from within Firefox

#148

For anyone who has SSH access to a server (but not VPN) and is wondering what to do when you need some security in a pinch, here is a quick fix... Open an ssh connection to a server you have access to using something like the following: ssh -ND 8887 -p 22 rufus@12.120.186.8 where 8887 is the port on your laptop that you will tunnel through, -p 22 is the port the ssh server is on (22 is the default but I use a differe…

Also, remember that some programs don't respect the system's proxy settings and instead use their own. Firefox is one of those, you can find its proxy settings in "Advanced -> Network -> Settings"

Also Firefox doesn't put DNS through a socks proxy by default, which has some security implications and doesn't allow you to reach internal-only names. In about:config set: network.proxy.socks_remote_dns to True.

Re: Firesheep: Easy HTTP session hijacking from within Firefox

#149
It states that it works for "open networks". What does that mean? All networks that you have access to? Including those in Cafes where they give you a key to log in? Or just networks that are completely open? And why does it work at all? I thought the wlan access point would encrypt the communication between itself and the computer. Would be interesting, which protocols are vulnurable to this and which are not.

I guess the logging of raw wlan packets is a one-liner under linux? Does anybody know it?

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