The Importance of Cookies to Your Site |
Posted: March 23, 2019 |
Web cookies are arguably one of the most critical aspects of web browsing that have been facilitated by technology. Have you ever wondered what cookies are? Well, you may probably have stopped previously to think what these are. If so, wonder no more since this article has you covered. It details the importance of web cookies to your site and what they can help you to achieve as a web administrator. What Exactly are Cookies and how are they Stored? If you’ve noticed, literally every website you visit nowadays always brings a pop-up message asking you to accept the website’s cookies. Web cookies are information that is stored on the client side. They are typically sent to the severer upon request by the client. The main use purpose that cookies serve is that of maintaining and authenticating browsing sessions. Therefore, when you secure a cookie, it means that the user’s identity is secured. How the use of Cookies have Revolutionized E-Commerce The application of cookies has transcended the corporate sector and found its way to the retail industry as well. For instance, e-commerce websites use cookies in identifying customers and retaining their credentials hence giving them a customized and unforgettable shopping experience. They do so by placing the cookies on the users’ browsers. Furthermore, e-commerce websites also use cookies to validate the identity of the user when they are browsing from page to page. Therefore, the absence of cookies would have slowed down the shoppers’ experience since they would have to enter their login details between every product that they add to the wish list or cart. Summarily, cookies used by retail websites serve the purposes indicated below: • Retaining customer payment information and address • Customer user interfaces, such is normally displayed as ‘welcome back, Steve’ • Products recommendations • Wishlists • Persistent shopping carts • Retaining customer login details What are some of the Attributed of Cookies? Just like many other technological products that have gained wide usage in the modern age and have their unique attributes, cookies to have their attributes. Below are some of the attributes: • Domain • Secure • HHTP Only • Path • Expires Domain& Path- this signifies the particular domain where the cookie is valid and has the ability to submit at each request. If it so happens that the hostname of the cookie is not specified, the nome of the host of the original server is used can then be used as the default value. On the other hand, the ‘path’ attribute indicates the path or URL for which the cookie is valid. In most circumstances, it is usually set as ‘/.’ Most importantly, the path and domain cookie attributes must be appropriately set where subfolders and subdomains host various applications. Secure- did you know that a cookie can be stolen or misused? For those reasons, it is vital that a cookie is ‘Secured’ to prevent malicious people from accessing it. One of the ways through which your website’s data can be stolen is through ‘sniffing.’ Sniffing simply means that an outsider may be able to read data that passively is under transmission. As a result, there is a need to adequately protect data that is under transmission to prevent it from outsiders from snooping. One way through which data is protected is by encryption. Doing so ensures that any outsider will not be able to access clear text data thus making it safe. Most websites usually encrypt only sensitive pages and the login page. Therefore, ‘secure’ means that potential attackers will not be able to steal cookies though cooking. Expires- this is an attribute that is used in the setting of persistent cookies. In other words, the period within which the browser will be able to use the cookie before it is deleted. As such, the lack of specification of this particular attribute would make the cookie have the same lifetime as that of the browser. In essence, it ensures that the persistent cookie doesn’t have any information that is sensitive. HTTP Only- at times, it is necessary to safeguard cookies from the side-scripts of a client. When the HTTP Only attribute is set, the client side-scripts will not be able to access the cookie. Although this technique prevents to safeguard cookies, it is vital to note that it does not prevent the stealing of cookies through XSS. In summary, it is evident that the use of cookies has made it easier for websites to store users’ details while at the same time authenticating their identity and giving them an easier time to log- in. For that reason, it is imperative to safeguard cookies to prevent outsiders who might ‘sniff’ data from gaining access to them.
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