What is Hijacking

Definition:

Hijackingis a process by which you try to hijack a specific element of the Internet environment through unauthorized routes. We can find it both in hijacking of urls, domains, dns, browser or session, among many others.

What is hijacking?

Browser hijackers are malwares, with a certain dangerous character, that usually redirect us to other web pages so that they can steal information or scam the user. If one of the computers is attacked by one of these browser hijackers, the home page of the search engine is altered, preventing the user from changing it.

They also usually perform other actions is to show advertising through pop-ups, the installation of toolbars or block access or some web pages. In the most serious cases, they can even falsify the searches made on Google.

Types of Hijacking

Through Hijacking, you can perform hijacks of both browsers and the following:

• Of domains. It’s about stealing a domain through identity theft. What is done is to modify the registry information and reassign the domain to itself and steal it.
• Content. It is based on publishing content from other websites as its own. It is a content that has already been published that will be detected by search engines.
• In URL.La page is removed from the search engine and replaced by another page that links to it.
• Session. What is done is hijack a valid session by which a session ID is stolen. It can be done by passive listening at the time it is sent to another server through cookies.
• From search engines. They realize that browsers offer fields separated by search engines.

How to identify a hijacker on my system

One of the ways to identify kidnappers are as follows:

• It is the change of home screen of a browser, since usually, in this type of threats the default search engine is changed so that they can adjust it according to their needs.
• Another way is that if a while has passed since you have been infected, you can see how the browser opens certain pages automatically. Most are usually advertising topics.

Avoid hijacking

To avoid this type of attack it is essential to pay attention to everything we install on our computer and on the web pages we visit.

Despite this, the most advisable thing for a website that aims to avoid these attacks is to register the domain on a web page that provides protection against kidnapping.

Another way is through the use of antivirus software with network controls. In this way, every time a URL is directed to an IP that is suspicious, the web will be blocked alerting the user.

They can also be removed through software (such as Adw Cleaner or Anti-Malware). These tools manage to eliminate malware that antivirus systems cannot find.

If once all these processes have been carried out, the problem has not yet been eradicated, it will be necessary to reconfigure the browser to eliminate the parts that have been altered by the hijackers.

Tips to prevent any type of hijacking

If we have an HTTPS connection, it encrypts the data using SSL, at the moment in which the data is intercepted the content must be decrypted in order to obtain the session ID. It is a complex way to ensure the theft of information.

On the other hand, protection against cross-site scripting is also recommended since they prevent the theft of both JavaScript code and the reading of cookies.

Finally, session IDs should not be included in the URL, as they are stored in log files, being much easier to recognize by attackers.