Firesheep is a Mozilla Firefox extension that uses packet sniffing to hijack unsecured Wi-Fi network sessions and capture unencrypted website cookies during network data transmission.Hackers access and steal unsecured user identities via Firesheep's browser sidebar.
Most websites require user credentials, such as username and password, for authentication. After verification, website servers respond with unencrypted cookies for subsequent browser requests, which enables easy hijacking--especially in open Wi-Fi hot spot locations.Firesheep was created by software developer Eric Butler to prove the security risks associated with a number of popular websites, including Facebook and Twitter. In October 2010, Firesheep was released during the ToorCon information security (IS) conference.
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