Protect your COOKIE!
Now if you’re reading this blog because you simply love Oreo, Milano or fortune cookie! sorry but you are not welcome here. The Cookie as it shows in the title, is not so sweet, chewable or visible! rather is more related to a web cookie.
Yeah, I know,it’s boring, who cares about web cookie right? but if you find out what cookie is all about and how a cookie can put you in personal’s security issue (referring to cybersecurity), you’ll be amazed.
So what is a cookie? Cookie is a tiny size of data that a server sends to a user’s browser, and it stores on a user’s browser until it expires or deletes it. What is that mean? Let’s take a look at the image below.
If you’re surfing websites (let’s assume that you are a huge fan of using Google Chrome browser), and every time you visit a webpage (such as “www.msn.com”), the webpage will create a cookie for you with a special form of data and send this data(cookie) to your browser. Now, this cookie on your browser won’t disappear until someone take action to delete it. So what’s the big deal? Let me demonstrate how this cookie can be a potentially invade your privacy.
A Youtube streamer named by ‘Mitchollow’ was testing how google was collecting his information. He explains to his viewers that he never had a ‘dog’ nor talk about the ‘dog’ on live streaming before. Then he first opened up the chrome browser and go to the media websites like news homepages and sees that on the right side of the sites(where ads usually display), it shows some commercials but nothing that related to “dog”.
After he exits the website, and close the Chrome browser and reopen again. He now talks about a ‘dog’ through his headset microphone. As he continuously talks about how his dog(although he didn’t have any dog), like about toys, and what are the best color toys (he specifically said “red”, and “blue”), he even says that he wishes to buy some more toys in future. so while he talks about his dog, something interesting(or rather scary) happens.
Now, after a few minutes when he visits back to the same website before , surprisingly the website now displaying ads that have content about ‘dog toys’!
Even more, the advertisement has a dog toy with a specific color that he mentioned on his microphone. Isn’t this surprise you? Personally I was kind of shock by how google can collect information like this.
Well, someone might say, “what is a big deal?” “Isn’t that convenient since it’s automatically find what you want and analyze the way you behave on the internet?” Of course, it definitely saves a ton of time for many people, and the world that we live in now time does matter.
Without doubt, we all know that google is a trustable company, and we all love Google Chrom for its services. But what if Google(hope not) decides to hijack your information( through a cookie) and uses somewhere else that could steal your personal information? like password, or what if it could manipulate some information through a cookie that could cause your browser in serious damage? In fact, in 2013 google was sued by 4.4 million iPhone users by privacy issues that google has secretly collected information on ‘safari’ browser by using a saved cookie on your phone. Maybe Google is not trustable anymore?
Well, it comes down to you, as an individual risk. It is each person responsible to understand and make sure to clean out the browser from time to time. So that way our information can be secure and be safe!
resources:
- youtube channel ‘Mitchollow’ || resources: “ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBnDWSvaQ1I”,
- News article about goolge sue by iphone user, https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/million-iphone-users-google-privacy-pay-1000/story/277508.html