Wi-Fi Hotspots Continue To Pose E-Mail Security Risk

Researchers demonstrated on Friday at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas that Web-based e-mail accounts hosted by MySpace, Facebook, Yahoo, Gmail, and Hotmail are vulnerable to hacker attacks when account holders use unencrypted Wi-Fi hotspots.

Errata Security CEO Robert Graham showed Black Hat attendees how to scan a public hotspot and sniff out an unsuspecting victim. The trick is to grab the cookie that the e-mail provider puts on the authorized user's computer.

While McAfee security research and communications manager Dave Marcus said the tactic is "nothing new," because anything going over a Wi-Fi hotspot can be "sniffed, intercepted, or broken into," he explained that, in this case, the hacker uses the intercepted cookie to mimic the victim's e-mail account, despite not having the actual password.