--- title: "What is Cookie poisoning?" description: "Cookie poisoning is a known technique mainly for achieving impersonation and breach of privacy through manipulation of session cookies, which maintain" author: "Anonymous User" published: 2011-02-23 updated: 2014-09-18 canonical: https://www.mindstick.com/blog/123/what-is-cookie-poisoning category: "security in .net" tags: ["security in .net"] reading_time: 1 minute --- # What is Cookie poisoning? Cookie poisoning is a known [technique](https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/93922/why-c-sharp-programmers-use-properties-technique-in-c-sharp-programming) mainly for achieving [impersonation](https://www.mindstick.com/interview/326/what-is-impersonation-in-asp-dot-net) and breach of privacy through [manipulation](https://www.mindstick.com/blog/63649/77-727-microsoft-excel-2016-core-data-analysis-manipulation-and-presentation-exam) of session cookies, which maintain the identity of the client. By forging these cookies, an attacker can impersonate a valid client, and thus gain information and [perform actions](https://www.mindstick.com/interview/2578/how-can-your-application-perform-actions-that-are-provided-by-other-application-e-g-sending-email) on behalf of the victim. The ability to forge such session cookies (or more generally, [session tokens](https://www.mindstick.com/forum/158229/how-are-session-tokens-generated-and-what-makes-a-session-token-secure)) stems from the fact that the tokens are not generated in a secure way. On the Web, cookie poisoning is the modification of a cookie ([personal information](https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/102585/how-to-secure-personal-information-on-a-laptop) in a Web user's computer) by an attacker to gain unauthorized information about the user for purposes such as [identity theft](https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/103234/how-to-protect-against-identity-theft). The attacker may use the information to open new [accounts](https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/33250/what-are-accounts-in-salesforce) or to gain access to the user's existing accounts.\ --- Original Source: https://www.mindstick.com/blog/123/what-is-cookie-poisoning Copyright © MindStick Software Pvt. Ltd. This Markdown version is provided for developers, AI systems, and offline reading.