Like a phishing attack, cookie hijacking allows a cybercriminal to steal personal information like usernames, passwords, and other important data held within the cookie. If you enter your information while on the fake website, the criminal can then put that cookie in their browser and impersonate you online.
Cookies can store a lot of your personal information, like your IP address, your username and/or password, your payment information, and many more. When cybercriminals steal them, they can compromise your accounts.
Can cookies steal passwords? Cookies aren't able to directly steal passwords. They simply save a scrambled version on your device that only the website can decode.
How Hackers Steal Cookies. Browsers allow users to maintain authentication, remember passwords and autofill forms. That might seem convenient, but attackers can exploit this functionality to steal credentials and skip the login challenge.
Prevent Spying With Your Browser
Websites and businesses use tracking cookies for legitimate purposes, such as easy browsing, personalizing ads, or improving website functionality. Their ability to monitor a user's browsing behavior has led some people to consider them spyware.
Tracking cookies can collect information about all the sites you visit, the pages you looked at within a website, products you might have clicked on, purchases that you've made, etc, IP address, and your geographic location.
Cookie hijacking, also called session hijacking, is a way for hackers to access and steal your personal data, and they may also prevent you from accessing certain accounts. Hijacking cookies is just as powerful, sometimes more so, as finding out your password.
The data in cookies themselves aren't harmful — and they can't infect a system or website with malware. However, if the cookie data falls into the wrong hands, attackers may be able to access browsing sessions, steal personal information, or otherwise abuse your cookie data.
By editing or manipulating the cookie, the attacker can gain access to the user data stored in the cookie. Cookie poisoning attacks are dangerous because they enable attackers to use the data stored inside cookies to gain unauthorized access to users' accounts or to steal their identities.
Yes, some cookies track IP addresses from users when they visit a website. The use of such tracking cookies is regulated in most parts of the world, and under the EU's GDPR, California's CCPA/CPRA, Brazil's LGPD and South Africa's POPIA, IP addresses are considered personal data/information.
Clearing your browser's cache and cookies means that website settings (like usernames and passwords) will be deleted and some sites might appear to be a little slower because all of the images have to be loaded again.
Will clearing cookies delete passwords? Yes, clearing cookies will wipe saved passwords from autofill settings saved on web browsers.
Yes, most cookies are safe to accept. They're intended to personalize your online experience and add to your convenience when using a website. Third-party cookies, on the other hand, may not be safe to accept.
Cookies by themselves do not pose security risks, however, they can be used by cybercriminals to impersonate the user, collect financial data, access their accounts or to steal passwords that are stored in the browser.
Anyone who lays hands on your device at the office, the cafe, or the subway (if you accidentally leave your briefcase behind) can access every account you have saved in Chrome passwords. This leaves you wide open to being hacked.
While cookies by themselves cannot dig or research your information or search your computer, they do store personal information in at least two ways—form information and ad tracking.
It's a good idea to decline third-party cookies. If you don't decline, the website could sell your browsing data to third parties. Sharing your personal information with third parties without giving you any control over it could also leave you vulnerable.
Cookies are small text files that collect bits of data about users as they browse the web. Individually, cookies do not track data about who you are as a person; they simply give information about your web browser and trends.
A cookie can be used to identify you to a website. It doesn't reveal personal information (because the data in the cookie came from the website's server in the first place) - just identifies you as the same browser that visited earlier.
Since tracking cookies are used to gather information about you without your authorization, they present a real threat to your online privacy. Tracking cookies like third-party cookies aren't used to enhance your experience but rather to keep track of your activity across certain websites.
Examples of cookie theft
Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a cyberattack where a hacker injects malicious code into a vulnerable website. After a user visits this website and a cookie is created, a hacker can use the cookie to impersonate the user and perform actions on the victim's behalf.
There are both legitimate and illegitimate purposes for performing cookie logging. Legitimate companies can use cookie logging to streamline the web experience by securely storing login credentials and preferences. However, cookie logging is also a security risk to users, as cookies can contain sensitive information.
Cookies follow you online: Even if you hide your IP address with a VPN, cookies can track what you do online and form a partial ID of who you are. Third-party cookies sell your data: Some sites earn revenue by serving third-party cookies.
A cookie typically contains two bits of data: a unique ID for each user, and a site name. Cookies enable websites to retrieve this information when you revisit them, so that they can remember you and your preferences and tailor page content for you based on this information.
If it's your personal device, it's a good idea to remove all cookies at least once a month to keep your device neat. Also, you should do this if you see a drop in browser performance or after visiting a shady website. This will make you re-enter multiple logins, but doing that for the sake of your privacy is worth it.