Which attack involves eavesdropping on cookies to analyze users' surfing habits and potentially sell them or use them against the user?

Which attack involves eavesdropping on cookies to analyze users' surfing habits and potentially sell them or use them against the user?

• A. Unvalidated Redirects and Forwards
• B. Cookie Snooping
• C. Insecure deserialization
• D. Deserialization

Answer: (B)

Cookie snooping is the act of silently reading cookies to learn about a user’s online behavior. Cookies often store data like site preferences, tracking identifiers, and sometimes session information. When an attacker can eavesdrop on these cookies—whether by capturing them over an insecure network or accessing them on a vulnerable device—they gain insight into surfing habits and can misuse that data. In the worst case, stolen session cookies can even be used to impersonate the user, access accounts, or perform targeted abuse or fraud. This makes cookie snooping a direct privacy intrusion and a gateway to more harmful actions if cookies contain or reveal sensitive information. The other options describe different security issues that don’t involve cookies or eavesdropping. Unvalidated redirects and forwards involve redirecting users to potentially malicious sites, while insecure deserialization and deserialization attacks exploit how serialized data is handled to execute code or manipulate programs. Those are not about reading or exploiting cookies to profile or track users. To reduce cookie snooping risk, use HTTPS, and set cookies with Secure, HttpOnly, and SameSite attributes, plus consider server-side session storage and proper cookie scoping.

Cookie snooping is the act of silently reading cookies to learn about a user’s online behavior. Cookies often store data like site preferences, tracking identifiers, and sometimes session information. When an attacker can eavesdrop on these cookies—whether by capturing them over an insecure network or accessing them on a vulnerable device—they gain insight into surfing habits and can misuse that data. In the worst case, stolen session cookies can even be used to impersonate the user, access accounts, or perform targeted abuse or fraud. This makes cookie snooping a direct privacy intrusion and a gateway to more harmful actions if cookies contain or reveal sensitive information.

The other options describe different security issues that don’t involve cookies or eavesdropping. Unvalidated redirects and forwards involve redirecting users to potentially malicious sites, while insecure deserialization and deserialization attacks exploit how serialized data is handled to execute code or manipulate programs. Those are not about reading or exploiting cookies to profile or track users. To reduce cookie snooping risk, use HTTPS, and set cookies with Secure, HttpOnly, and SameSite attributes, plus consider server-side session storage and proper cookie scoping.