WEB COOKIES-Not a Yummy Sort of…

Cookies, definitely it is not a sweet dish what we roast in kitchen. It is internet cookies and can also be referred as web cookie, browser cookie etc. It is stored in our system’s hard-disk while visiting a website. It is used by website’s owners to keep tracking of an user’s interest. They do so because of their better experiences with their users. For example; If a user visit to amazon’s website then by using cookies they can keep tracking of our interests. It can also become beneficiary with the user’s prospective like if we login to our instagram account then using cookies we can store our login details and next time we need not to fill those details again. It is used by a website to identify the user, though it doesn’t reveal the personal data of the user. Cookie is derived from the word “Magic Cookies” which means a small piece of information. Cookies are also known as http cookies, browser cookies or web cookies. These Browser cookies are stored in the internet database. Cookies for one website is independent from the other website’s cookies.

HISTORY OF COKKIES:

MONTULII LOU, who was a employee at NETSCAPE COMMUNICATIONS. At that time company was trying to make websites which are commercially more interactive and user friendly because at that time websites were not good at user’s prospective. The thing was that the shopkeepers those who had offline shops for shopping could able to know the interests and choices of their customers by seeing them and by identifying their regular customers. But websites had no such mechanism, then how could they interact with their old and new customers because each customer was like an anonymous stranger.

And then, LOU developed a solution to make e-commerce shopping carts possible, called COOKIES.

Here are some common types of Cookies;

1. SESSION COOKIES: These are ‘temporary cookies’ and commonly used by shopping websites. The information of user only retain as long as they are on the website. And once the website is closed, cookies are deleted automatically.

2. PERSISTENT COOKIES: These cookies are also known as ‘permanent cookies’ and remain there even after the browser is closed, i.e. we save our login details for a app like facebook and next time it will be available when we open it again because they are stored in the internet memory. But even a permanent cookie is also deleted after 12 months.

3. THIRD-PARTY COOKIES: These cookies are usually used by advertisers to market their products to the target audience.

4. ZOMBIE COOKIES: These cookies are often used in online gaming to prevent from cheating but also used to install malware on user’s device.

…………Now, it’s time to think towards security point……………..

Along with storing our interest, login information etc. , cookies can produce some issues for us. Although it’s not a kind of malware, a virus or any sort of a executable file but they’re just a text file containing small piece of data. But we all know security is a major issue in today’s internet world. And depending on our method of using it , can cause a major security issues.

Following are some security risks may occurs because of cookies;

· Cookies can be stolen and hence can commit fraudulent acts.

· The stolen cookies can let the hackers to get access to the user’s account without entering login details.

· Can track user.

· User’s data can be stolen for malicious purpose.

There are also some key steps by using which we can take to avoid cookie-related threats;

Although cookies have lots of security and privacy risks but it also do some functions that provide flexibility to use internet. But the main focus should be that we’re using it in a secure manner.

The first and foremost thing is to ensure that the cookie only travels through HTTPS website.

There are two flags in order to secure cookies and we need to ensure that these two flags are enabled- (i) “HTTP only” flag and; (ii) “secure” flag; set this flag to ‘YES’ — in this flag cookies are only transferred in an encrypted form. If these two flags are enabled then we can be ensure that our data will be safe.

We should delete those cookies which are containing confidential information like passwords etc.

We should keep updating our browser timely.

Should logout properly from our account after using any public workstation.

Our modern and up-to-date browsers also allows us to delete and block cookies effortlessly.

Always use authenticated website.

Expiry time of the cookie, containing useful information should be very short.

All these steps mentioned above, can be done manually and deleted cookies easily by navigating to the cookie folder.

Cyberwar is the battlefield of now- GEOFF LIVINGSTON, Author & President of TENACITY5 MEDIA

………stay secure, stay vigilance, stay reading……….