HTTP Cookie Hijacking in the Wild - Security and Privacy Implications

Explore the security vulnerabilities and privacy implications of HTTP cookie hijacking in this Black Hat conference talk. Delve into an in-depth assessment of major websites with partially deployed HTTPS, revealing how service personalization can inadvertently expose private information. Examine the complex interplay of multiple cookies with different scopes and inter-dependencies, and discover how imprecise access control can render restricted account functionality accessible to non-session cookies. Learn about severe flaws uncovered in popular platforms like Google, Bing, Baidu, Yahoo, Amazon, and eBay, exposing sensitive user data such as search history, contact lists, and purchase records. Investigate the extent of the threat through IRB-approved measurements on a university's public wireless network, and consider the alarming implications for Tor users' anonymity. Evaluate various protection mechanisms, including the EFF's HTTPS Everywhere extension, and understand their limitations in fully mitigating the risk of cookie hijacking attacks.