Editing Finger (protocol) (section)

==Security concerns==
Supplying such detailed information as e-mail addresses and full names was considered acceptable and convenient in the early days of networking, but later was considered questionable for privacy and security reasons.{{fact|date=January 2022}}

Finger information has been used by [[Hacker (computer security)|hacker]]s as a way to initiate a [[social engineering (computer security)|social engineering]] attack on a company's computer security system. By using a finger client to get a list of a company's employee names, email addresses, phone numbers, and so on, a hacker can call or email someone at a company requesting information while posing as another employee.

The finger [[daemon (computer software)|daemon]] has also had several{{Citation needed|date=September 2020}} exploitable security holes crackers have used to break into systems. For example, in 1988 the [[Morris worm]] exploited an overflow vulnerability in <code>fingerd</code> (among others) to spread.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://homes.cerias.purdue.edu/~spaf/tech-reps/823.pdf#page5 |title=An analysis of the worm |first=Eugene |last=Spafford |author-link=Gene Spafford |publisher=[[Purdue University]] |format=PDF |date=8 December 1988 |access-date=2021-06-10}}</ref>

For these reasons, by the late 1990s the vast majority of sites on the Internet no longer offered the service.{{cn|date=September 2016}}