Contrary to what some individuals think, cookies are not in themselves a security risk. They are simply small bits of data that are commonly transmitted from a Web server to a Web browser. Cookies can also be entirely processed client-side. The browser stores the message in a text file, and each time the browser requests from the server a particular page, the message is sent back to the server. One of the most widely known uses of cookies is to personalize a Website for users. That is, when users enter a Website, they may be asked to complete forms indicating their name and certain particulars. Instead of seeing a generic welcome page, users are later greeted with a page including their identifiers stored in the cookies.

Nevertheless, there is controversy surrounding cookies. For example, cookies can be accessed, read, and used by malicious Websites unintentionally visited by innocent users. This cookie information can be used to gather intelligence on the user and later used against the user, or the cookie information can be used to access the original Website.

See Also: Browser; Server.