Can you hack session variables

So how to get your hands on a Session ID? There are a number of techniques attackers use to compromise a Session ID. The most obvious is to attack the server. The server often stores the session ID somewhere, and more worryingly, the server sometimes stores the session ID in a world-readable location. This location is world-readable, meaning that any user on that system can easily view the session IDs with basic utilities that are part of the Unix API.

This is serious risk, particularly on shared hosts since many users will be active on the system. This issue has since been addressed but it is just one example. Another method is to attack the client.

Microsoft Internet Explorer, for example, has had numerous flaws that allowed web sites to read cookies often used to store the Session ID to which they did not belong. Ideally, only the site that created the cookie should have access to it.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and there are many instances of cookies being accessible to anyone. Either way, a cookie persistently stored in the browser cache is a tempting target. Unencrypted transmissions are all too common and allow communication to be observed by an attacker. This is something I have rarely seen developers do.

Such a simple thing can go such a long way. Another way to that is used to compromise a Session ID is to attempt to predict it. Prediction occurs when an attacker realises that a pattern exists between session IDs. For example, some web based systems increment the session ID each time a user logs on. Knowing one session ID allows malicious users to identify the previous and next ones. Others use a brute force attack. This is a simple yet potentially effective method for determining a session identifier.

A brute force attack occurs when a malicious user repeatedly tries numerous session identifiers until they happen upon a valid one. Although it is not complicated, it can be highly effective. Always use strong encryption during transmission. It's server side, and yes, it's possible. But is it likely since they have a small window to do it in? Sessions are NOT serverside, they are stored on the clients local machine you can go in your cookies and look for a cookie called phpssid under your domain name.

Yes they can be hacked, and this is in fact a very common method of hacking. Someone will hack into the session, then play around with the values of the session variables and try to find one that gives them administrator status or what not. You should program your code to protect you from this. Sorry, I think hackers suck. What legitimate reason could you have for wanting to hack a session variable?

Session variables are stored on the server. The session ID that associates a visitors with the session variables stored on the server is what is stored in the cookie.

But to the point of this post I assume it would be possible to hack a user's session ID to then access data on a secured site, but I suppose there would only be a small window of opportunity. I've never worried about this, but I guess you could protect the session data by matching up the session data with the user's IP? My bad, you're correct about that. I always saw the phpssid in my cookie list and thought that the info was stored inside it. As others have noted this is the cookie on your machine.

To guard against this you could: Send the cookie to the client over https. Do not store the cookie on disk a cookie without a timeout will be stored in memory Locking a session to a single ip address, can cause problems, if your users are coming from a network with 2 proxy servers.

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