HTTP cookies are essential to modern day internet. Cookies help personalize and offer more convenient websites to visit. Cookies let the website remember you, your log in details, shopping carts and more. They can also be a mountain of information for criminals to spy on. While many cookies are perfectly safe, you may get a bad batch with some being able to track you without consent.
What are cookies?
Cookies are text files with small pieces of data that are used to identify your computer as you use a computer network. Specific cookies are known as HTTP cookies and are used to improve your web browsing. When a cookie is exchanged between you and the network server, the server reads the cookie ID and know what information to serve to you.
What are cookies used for?
Without cookies, you would have to re-login or rebuild a shopping cart if the tab was closed. Cookies are there to make your online experience more streamline and efficient. Cookies are intended to be used for efficiency rather than maliciously, like tracking what items go into your shopping cart so that the website can better suggest items while you shop.
Why cookies can be dangerous
Cookies themselves aren’t harmful. They can’t infect your computer with virus or malware; however, some cyberattacks can hijack these cookies and gain access to your browsing. It is important to understand the difference between first (directly created by the website) and third (created by ads on a website) party cookies. Zombie cookies are from a third-party and permanently install themselves onto users’ computers – even if they opt not to install cookies. They also appear when they’ve been deleted. They are extremely difficult to remove and hence why you should never click on ads provided by third parties.