How can the browser cache be used in attacks?
The browser has a capability to temporarily store some of the pages browsed. These cached files are stored in a folder, like the Temporary Internet Files folder in the case of Internet Explorer. When we ask for these pages again, the browser displays them from its cache. This is much faster than downloading the page from the server. Let’s consider the particular scenario where a user has logged in to an application with username and password. The user browses the different pages which contain sensitive information. Let’s suppose a page with the user’s credit card information gets cached in the browser and the user logs out of the application. Now suppose the attackers access the same machine and searches through the Temporary Internet Files, they will get the credit card details. The attackers do not need to know the username and password of the user to steal the information.
