COLUMBIA (WACH) -- A new piece of software released this week is spreading rapidly across the internet allowing amateur hackers to steal personal information from anyone using a laptop or smart phone in public.
Since its release on Sunday, the Firesheep extension for Mozilla's Firefox web browser has been downloaded more than 379,000 times. Users then are able to intercept data sent by other users laptops and smart phones on the free Wi-Fi connections routinely offered in coffee shops, malls and other public locations.
Firesheep works by secretly monitoring unsecure connections and grabbing the user names and passwords of all devices. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, as well as photo sharing sites such as Flickr are all vulnerable.
"Before you would have to spend hours to affectively compromise data like this, but with Firesheep, you click two buttons and your in," says Stephen Miano with That Computer Store in Irmo.
Miano adds while Firesheep is a new program, hackers have always been able to intercept data over unencrypted networks and this should serve as a reminder for users to be smart about what they do over free public networks.
His business once featured an open Wi-Fi network, allowing customers easy access to the web. However, Miano doesn't want anyone on his connection to be vulnerable to Firesheep, so it's now encrypted and users will need a password.
"Generally speaking you want to be extremely careful with free Wi-Fi," said Miano.
Security experts say the best way for most users to avoid having their personal information intercepted is not to use public Wi-Fi networks to access websites requiring a password. More technical users can also create a virtual private network on their devices to block Firesheep.
"I applaud the gentleman for his effort, but I shun him for making it available so easily," says technology consultant Chris Howard. "A tool this powerful should not be in the hands of the public."
According to Miano, while Firesheep is drawing a great deal of attention this week a much larger problem is the number of people who don't take advantage of the free encryption options for wireless internet in their homes.
"I could pull in the driveway across the street and infect your entire home network without setting foot on your property. That's a much bigger risk," said Miano.
The new hacking application is drawing intense debate among security experts at to its legality. Federal wiretapping laws make it illegal to capture data from someone else's internet connection, but the law provides an exemption for networks that are open and accessible to the general public.
"I imagine we will probably start fielding calls for this any day now," Miano says.
Officials at Mozilla tell Computer World they either can't, or won't, disable the program.
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