Skip to main content

Enhancing the Security of Cookies

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Information Security and Cryptology — ICISC 2001 (ICISC 2001)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2288))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Cookies are pieces of information generated by a Web server to be stored in a user’s machine. The information in cookies can range from selected items in a user’s shopping cart to authentication information used for accessing restricted pages. While cookies are clearly very useful, they can also be abused. In this paper, security threats that cookies can pose to a user are identified, as are the security requirements necessary to defeat them. Various options to meet the security requirements are then examined. Proposed user-controlled approaches and their implementations are presented and compared with a server-controlled approach, particularly the ‘Secure Cookies’ method, to illustrate the relative advantages and disadvantages of the two approaches.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. S. Garfinkel, and G. Spafford. Web Security & Commerce. O’Reilly, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  2. B. Hancock. Security views: some cookies are not tasty. Computers & Security, 17(5):374–376, 1998.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. B. Haselton and J. McCarthy. Internet Explorer open cookie jar. http://www.peace.re.org/security/iecookies/, May 2000.

  4. V. Khu-smith. An implementation flaw concerning Netscape Navigator and cookies. January 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  5. D. Kristol and L. Montulli. HTTP State Management Mechanism — RFC2109. IETF, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  6. S. Laurent. Cookies. McGraw Hill, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Netscape. Persistent Client State HTTP Cookies, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  8. J. Park and R. Sandhu. Secure cookies on the web, IEEE Internet Computing, 4(4):36–44, 2000.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. D. Ross, I. Brugiolo, J. Coates, and M. Roe. Cross-site scripting overview. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/, Febuary 2000.

  10. D. Stein. Web Security. Addison Wesley, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Khu-smith, V., Mitchell, C. (2002). Enhancing the Security of Cookies. In: Kim, K. (eds) Information Security and Cryptology — ICISC 2001. ICISC 2001. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2288. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45861-1_11

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45861-1_11

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-43319-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45861-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics