Session hijacking is a form of man-in-the-middle attack that, if successful, grants the hacker full access to a legitimate user’s account and browser session. To achieve this, attackers steal a user’s session ID and then apply it to their browser, tricking the application servers into authenticating users.
As various services of an application create sessions to serve as a reference for a user’s initial authentication, an attack vector exploits such services to stay connected to the server for the duration of the current session. Hackers orchestrate a session hijacking attack to gain unauthorized access to a user’s session and then assume and leverage the victim’s identity for deeper exploitation. This article delves into how session hijacking attacks are commonly orchestrated, the risk & impacts of such attacks, and the best practices to prevent vulnerabilities that cause such attacks.
Once a user’s session ID is obtained, the attacker can masquerade as a legitimate user on any number of web services that successfully handshakes with the session ID. In hijacking attacks, a hacker uploads malicious code to a site frequently visited by the original user, then forces the victim’s machine to send the session cookie data to the hacker’s server. A recent Verizon study found that approx 85% of breaches were caused due to the human element and were avoidable in the presence of robust security measures. Session hijacking attack is a highly prevalent attack resulting in identity theft, data breaches, and financial fraud.
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