Last week we saw the Firesheep extension for Firefox make an appearance and make social networking sites like Facebook more than a little nervous.  It moved the idea of account hijacking from a tiny risk that only a few knew how to execute to something anyone could use.  The extension has made the news and is forcing social media sites to acknowledge the risks, though little has been done as of yet.  The Register links to a report card on how vulnerable the various targeted sites are to exploit by Firesheep.

“An online services security report card shows the extent to which popular web services are exposing users to account hijacking, especially in open WiFi network environments.

The risk has been understood in security circles for years but remained underreported prior to last week’s release of an account hijacking tool called FireSheep. The Firefox plugin allows surfers to sniff and capture login credentials for sites including Facebook and Twitter and to subsequently log into those accounts, all with a few clicks of a button.”

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