An article about Man-in-the-middle attack
A man-in-the-middle attack is a unique kind of security breach where the perpetrator utilizes their technical knowhow to have unauthorized access to the communication between two communicating parties. The vulnerabilities posed by this attack include access to personal information, traffic to a network, and sabotage of the communication. The article further underscores that attackers using this form of security breach might opt to re-encrypt intercepted traffic to suit their preferences, therefore, making it difficult to detect the imposter. Several techniques can be used to fulfill the espionage or disruptive goals of this attack. One can use the SSL striping model to navigate through a system by launching an HTTPS, thus manipulating info at will. The author, Dan Swinhoe, suggests that knowing how the attack works acts like a stepping stone upon which robust prevention measures can be initiated to protect systems against financial losses, espionage, or even disruption.
Moreover, attackers can target bank account holders and siphon account details. This is done where a target customer may be updating or downloading some new information. The imposter corrupts the process and downloads a disruptive malware instead of the intended product without the user detecting. Unsecured updates and downloads significantly give unauthorized users the advantage to fulfill their malicious intentions since they often assume encrypting traffic. In the long run, victims lose massive financial credentials. Even so, attackers need to be in a range of decrypted Wi-Fi access points to navigate through a network or server easily.
Nevertheless, it is also possible to compromise routing protocols remotely. Attackers advertise fake IP addresses on the internet to gain the advantage of a routing device before compromising it to unveil the man-in-the-middle attack. This can also be done through DNS spoofing where attackers may manipulate the DNS settings, thus revealing the attack after the attacker has joined a specific website with a fake IP address.
The prevalence of MitM attack in the United States is relatively low, as malicious users will opt for the easier route to fulfill their intentions. Instead, they will often use malware installation or even spoofing to justify their acts. In the recent past, MitM attacks haven incredibly reduced due to the increase in the use of HTTPS and more encrypted browsing. Moreover, browsing companies such as Chrome and Firefox have initiated a mechanism to warn their customers whenever a MitM attack is on their way. Public Wi-Fi hotspots have also become much safer to use due to the instigation of SSL and current browsers.
MitM attacks can be prevented by using encrypted routing protocols such as the Secure Shell (SSH), Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), or Google’s QUIC. Again, it is essential to entirely keep off public networks since they are highly susceptible to MitM attacks. VPNs may as well be used to improve the security of devices. However, it is highly advisable to use multifactor authentication and high network control mechanisms to ensure only legitimate users have access to confidential information. Nevertheless, segmenting the network can also help to keep off malice. Most noteworthy, MitM is a sneaky attack that is quite hard to detect; therefore, preventive mechanisms must be initiated to reduce the adverse effects. Ultimately, quantum cryptography may also provide a robust protection mechanism against MitM. Unfortunately, continue growth in the Internet of Things poses an increase in security breaches in equal measure, especially of MitM nature, not unless TLS is implemented proliferations in IOT controlled.