Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar? A threat actor, probably using infostealer malware.
While cookie hijacking may sound whimsical, the impact of cookie theft can be devastating. Cookies offer bad actors a way to get around multi-factor authentication (MFA) controls, allowing them to take over legitimate sessions, impersonate users and steal valuable information. While cookie theft is on the rise, threat intelligence provides an important way to combat such hijacking.
How Flare Helps with Cookie Hijacking Prevention
How can Flare help prevent cookie hijacking?
Driven by the adoption of MFA and tighter password controls, threat actors have started to use malware and other techniques to steal cookies. The hijacked cookies allow them to take over sessions and impersonate users.
The Flare Account and Session Takeover Prevention (ASTP) solution is designed to help large consumer SaaS web applications prevent the takeover of customer accounts.
Attackers have found session cookies to be an invaluable asset as they enable bypassing authentication, even multi-factor authentication. By combining these cookies with information from stealer logs and leveraging tools such as VPNs and anti-detect browsers, they can seamlessly take over active sessions. Once stolen, a session cookie allows attackers to maintain access to an account for the duration of the session, regardless of the original user’s security protocols.
Flare Account and Session Takeover Prevention addresses this growing threat by maintaining a cutting-edge repository of leaked credentials and active session cookies. Through API access, organizations can leverage this data to swiftly revoke compromised sessions, mitigate fraudulent activity, and enhance user security. By tackling stolen cookie sessions, Flare Account and Session Takeover Prevention closes a significant gap in preventing account takeovers, offering a proactive solution to a growing cybersecurity challenge.
How does Flare help your team mitigate damage after a cookie hijacking attack?
During a cookie hijacking attack, criminals steal information, such as passwords, email addresses, usernames and personal details. They might also attempt to make changes, or steal proprietary information from your organization. Flare’s solution proactively scans the web to find sensitive information that may have been stolen during an undetected attack. Once that information shows up in an unauthorized location, the platform sends a notification to your team. You can then take action quickly to prevent further attacks and mitigate damage.
What are the key benefits of Flare’s threat intelligence solution?
- Unmatched data collection: Flare uses billions of data points to provide your team with information about your organization’s security stance, relevant threats, and the movement of threat actors between platforms.
- Transparency: Flare lists every source so you can tell decision makers exactly where your threat intelligence data is coming from.
- Automated continuous monitoring: Using an automated solution gives your team 24/7 coverage, so you will know as soon as users’ information is compromised.
- A proactive security stance: By actively seeking out potential threats, you can catch breaches early, giving leadership and your team an opportunity to take steps to protect their data, systems, and networks.
An Overview of Cookie Hijacking Prevention
What is cookie hijacking?
In a cookie hijacking attack, a bad actor steals a session cookie in order to take over a user’s legitimate session or account. Once the threat actor has access to the cookie, they are able to impersonate the victim, get into their systems, and steal valuable information from their devices, applications or networks.
How are cookies stolen?
Threat actors can steal cookies in many different ways:
- Infostealer malware: Infostealers are a type of malware that quietly infects a device, stealing sensitive cookies and the sensitive information they contain. The malware uses that stolen information to generate stealer logs, files that contain the records of the data captured from the infected systems. These logs are then sold to other threat actors.
- Packet sniffing: An attacker eavesdrops on unencrypted network traffic in order to find and steal session cookies that are being transmitted between a device and a web server.
- Man in the Middle attacks: An attacker secretly intercepts cookies by spying on network traffic.
- Social engineering: A bad actor uses phishing, smishing, or other attacks to trick the user into revealing their session cookies.
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Is there a difference between session hijacking and cookie hijacking?
While the two terms are often used interchangeably, cookie hijacking and session hijacking aren’t exactly the same thing. Cookie stealing or hijacking refers to the act of specifically stealing a cookie to get into a legitimate session, while session hijacking refers to the act of hijacking a session.
Why is it So Important to be Aware of Cookie Hijacking in Today’s Cybersecurity Landscape?
Why is cookie hijacking prevention important right now?
Cookie hijacking is on the rise. With the popularity of multi factor authentication (MFA), bad actors have had to find new ways of getting unauthorized access to accounts and sessions. With passwords and usernames off the table, criminals have realized that they can instead steal cookies, which then allow them to bypass MFA and take over an authenticated session instead.
Can cookie hijacking be prevented?
Cookie hijacking can be prevented with the right controls. The following measures help to keep browsers and sessions secure:
- Password managers: When passwords are stored in a manager, not a browser, risk of password theft to access cookies can be mitigated.
- MFA: Multi-factor authentication adds another layer of security to devices and accounts.
- Employee training: Users don’t always know about cookie theft. By providing training, your organization can raise awareness and secure cookies and sessions.
- Personal device policies: When personal devices come to work, this opens up new and potentially easier targets for bad actors to steal cookies and get into corporate resources.
- Threat intelligence: Continuous monitoring for stealer logs and other stolen information across the clear, deep, and dark web is a critical part of finding leaks and fixing vulnerabilities.
Where do threat actors buy stealer logs?
Stealer logs are repositories of valuable information — like cookies, credentials, and other personal data — that threat actors compile using infostealer malware. Stealer logs are often sold in prominent threat actor communities and dark web forums and markets.
Flare’s Role in Cookie Hijacking Prevention
The Flare Threat Exposure Management (TEM) solution empowers organizations to proactively detect, prioritize, and mitigate the types of exposures commonly exploited by threat actors. Our platform automatically scans the clear & dark web and prominent threat actor communities 24/7 to discover unknown events, prioritize risks, and deliver actionable intelligence you can use instantly to improve security.
