What are cookies? KSAT Explains [Video]

You’ve seen those notifications online: a box that pops up alerting you that a website uses cookies.

So what are they?

“We don’t see them, we don’t actually touch them, and we’re always being prompted, ‘Do you want to accept cookies?’” said Kris Wall, Chief Technology Officer of Critical Fault, an offensive cybersecurity firm in San Antonio.

Websites use cookies to know who you are by storing information like your username, what you did the last time you logged in and more.

Think of it like a digital nametag.

The cookies a website gives you are stored on the device you’re using to access the internet.

“Now any time that you come to this website, you’re going to hand me that cookie every single time,” Wall said. “Your browser does it automatically.”

“It’s simply a small piece of data,” said UTSA assistant professor of computer science Rocky Slavin. “So, the next time you come back to that website, you’ll send that cookie information …