Beware of Session Hijacking

We’ve been talking a lot about session hijacking recently and we’re starting to get a lot of questions about what that term means. By definition, a session hijack is a security attack where an unauthorized person takes control of a user's authorized session in a computer system.

In a typical online scenario, when a user logs into a website or application, a session is established between the user and the server to maintain their authenticated state. This session is generally maintained through the use of session tokens or cookies.

Session hijacking occurs when an attacker intercepts or steals the session information, allowing them to impersonate the legitimate user and gain unauthorized access to the system. There are several methods through which session hijacking can be carried out:

Packet Sniffing: Attackers can use packet sniffing tools to intercept and analyze data packets exchanged between the user and the server. If the session information is transmitted in an unencrypted form, the attacker can easily capture and use it.

Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) Attacks: In a MITM attack, the attacker positions themselves between the user and the server, intercepting and possibly modifying the communication between them. This allows the attacker to capture session information.

Session Sidejacking: Also known as session hijacking over a network, this involves stealing session information by targeting vulnerable or insecure network connections.

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS): If a website is vulnerable to XSS attacks, an attacker can inject malicious scripts into web pages viewed by other users. These scripts can then capture session information from unsuspecting users.