It’s becoming easier and easier for anyone with minimal computer knowledge to take over your identity on the web. I could go into the specifics but I want ‘normal’ people to understand the threat and solution to this problem.
Have you noticed on your address bar, that most websites start with http://
What this means is ANYONE has the potential to watch whatever you type or view from that website. With https:// the ‘s’ on the end means SECURE.
A special program called ‘Firesheep’ is designed to allow anyone to eavesdrop on an insecure connection and with it they can hack your account without ever knowing your password.
Sites have gotten the message and started using secure connections such as twitter, google, and youtube.
Recently Facebook has added security as an option to the website. To stay secure, I recommend you log into your Facebook account and turn ‘secure browsing’ on, as shown.
NOTE: This does not protect you from viruses, it only prevents people from eavesdropping on you.
So the next time you’re going to a website, look at the top of your web browser. If you don’t see https — realize that whatever site you’re signed into, someone could be pretending to be you.