Virus and Cookies
Tuesday, March 12, 2002 by MobiusCo | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
Just a little question from an earlier debate, can a cookie from a website contain a virus/worm/trojan? I have a pretty good idea in my head but it was a heated debate so I thought I would see the results from the group here
T-Man
Reply #2 Tuesday, March 12, 2002 11:54 AM
Reply #2 Tuesday, March 12, 2002 11:54 AM
I've never seen or heard of a virus within a cookie. And as crae mentioned they are just data and do not get executed so the likely hood of them containing a virus is next to nothing.
Hell Dragon
Reply #3 Tuesday, March 12, 2002 1:02 PM
Reply #3 Tuesday, March 12, 2002 1:02 PM
Very unlikely...
You could put the code for a virus in there, but the browser wouldn't execute it, only reference/read it.
Although... thinking about it, a buffer overflow could *maybe* be used to overload a cookie variable and execute arbitrary code, but I imagine the cookie variables and functions are well tested and heavily validated.
hmmm... it's just theory, doubt it's been done, or even if it's technically possible.
You could put the code for a virus in there, but the browser wouldn't execute it, only reference/read it.
Although... thinking about it, a buffer overflow could *maybe* be used to overload a cookie variable and execute arbitrary code, but I imagine the cookie variables and functions are well tested and heavily validated.
hmmm... it's just theory, doubt it's been done, or even if it's technically possible.
MobiusCo
Reply #4 Tuesday, March 12, 2002 3:14 PM
Reply #4 Tuesday, March 12, 2002 3:14 PM
OK now see I agree, during a debate last night a friend was resisting using cookies to hold some session variables because she was convinced by someone that cookies contains virus' and for the life of me I could not figure out how in the work a text based variable holder could contain one let along execute it...and she could not remember where she say the information about it. So I thought I would mention it here to see if anyone had every heard of that. For I had never seen/heard or even could comprehend how a cookie could execute a virus....now java, javascript, and active x..that is a different story
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Reply #1 Tuesday, March 12, 2002 7:10 AM