June 23, 2018
WHAT ARE WEB COOKIES and HOW THEY WORK USES AND SECURITY
I hope you all are well aware about this statement.Do you what this statement means and what the heck are cookies?
If not,then you are at the right place,this article is dedicated for web cookies.
WHAT ARE WEB COOKIES
Web cookies refers to the plain text record which is sent from the website and stored on the user's computer by user's web browser,while user is browing over a particular website. Web cookies contribute a lot as far as user experience is concerned.
HOW THEY WORK ?
Basically,server sends the data to the user's browser in the form of cookies.Now,it is upto the browser,to accept or to reject the cookies.If it accepts,then it is stored as a plain text record on the user's system.Now,when a user arrives at another page,on the same site,then browser sends the same cookies to the server for retrieval.After successful retrieval,your servers know what was stored earlier.
Cookies are the plain text records of 5 fields :
1. Expire : It defines the date when,the cookie would be expired.
2. Domain : The domain of your website.
3. Path : The directory which set the cookie.
4. Secure : If this field contains the word "secure",then the cookie may only be retrieved with the secure server.However,if this field is kept blank,then no such restrictions exists.
5. Name=Value : Cookies are set and retrieved in the set of name-value.
So,this is the working of a cookie.
USES OF COOKIES
Cookies were mainly designed for CGI PROGRAMMING.The data contained in a cookie is automatically transmitted between the servers and browsers,so CGI scripts can read and write values that are stored on cookies.
Also,main idea behind cookie is to provide greater user experience over sessions by sessions.
Cookies are probably one of the best way to make the site work more efficiently,as well as to provide crucial information to the owner of the site,which he can use further to improve the website.
SECURITY ISSUES
We all know that cookies are stored on the client-side on the client's system, and in some cases may contain sensitive data. Therefore, the cookie data is in complete control of the client it can be modified/overwritten/captured and reused.Cookies are also used to store the session data.For instance,the login details of the user.These cookies may be stored on websites,Imagine the damaged that can be done by session-capture or session-hacking,and also, we had witnessed the session hijacking over the past few years.
So,in order to protect yourself from all these cyber attacks,you should ensure that your session is encrypted and secured.
So,atlast, we can say that cookies are one of the best way to enhance the performance of the webpage,and allow the owner of the website,to provide greater surfing experience to the users.














