Protect yourself from COOKIE GRABBERS!

What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small piece of data saved by your browser on behalf of Neopets.com. It saves your login information so you don't have to log in every time you want to do something on Neopets.com.

What is a cookie grabber?

A cookie grabber is any browser exploit on another website that allows an attacker to capture your browser cookies. Those cookies contain your login information, and can be used to log into your account from the attacker's computer.

How can I protect myself from cookie grabber sites?

The most common cookie grabber uses a JScript exploit that only affects the Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) browser, versions 5.5 and 6.0. This includes the MSIE browsers built into ISP software like America Online_ and MSIE shells like MyIE2. If you go to windowsupdate.com and install all the security patches for your browser, you will be immune to the JScript exploit. If you use a browser that isn't based on MSIE, you are already immune to the JScript exploit.

I think I went to a cookie grabber site! What should I do?

If you don't have all your security patches, change your Neopets pässwörd immediately. If you were directed to the site by a Neopets user, report them using the Automatic Email Form.

How to be 100% immune to cookie grabbers:

Use a more secure browser, like Netscape (netscape.com) or Mozilla (mozilla.org). Microsoft Internet Explorer has a long history of major security vulnerabilites.

Disable -blocked- access to cookies. In Netscape or Mozilla, go to about:config and change dom.disable_cookie_get and dom.disable_cookie_set to true. This will cause problems on websites that use -blocked- to set cookies for stuff like alternate stylesheets, but it's worth the added security.