An attack by which an unauthorized person intercepts a communication between Alice and Bob, pretending, for example, to be either Alice (to Bob) or Bob (to Alice). A powerful attack which can take on a number of forms but can be prevented by well constructed communication/authentication protocols. _____________________________________________________________________________
This term refers to an attack that is carried out by an intruder who is located between two communication parties and counterfeits data.
An "active" Internet attack, whereby the criminal attempts to intercept, read or alter information moving between two computers.
An attack by an entity intercepting communications between two others without their knowledge and by intercepting that communication is able to obtain or modify the information between them.
An eavesdropping attack where a client's communication with a server is proxied by an attacker. Generally, the implication is that the client performs a cryptographic key exchange with an entity and fails to authenticate that entity, thus allowing an attacker to look like a valid server.
A man-in-the-middle attack is one in which the attacker intercepts messages in a public key exchange and then retransmits them, substituting their own public key for the requested one, so that the two original parties still appear to be communicating with each other directly. The attacker uses a program that appears to be the server to the client and appears to be the client to the server. The attack may be used simply to gain access to the messages, or enable the attacker to modify them before transmitting them again. The term is derived from the ball game where a number of people try to throw a ball directly to each other while one person in between attempts to catch it.
In this particular type of attack, a third party piggybacks on valid user privileges to gain unapproved access to a computer or network. The man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack exploits the authentication process of a one-way authentication (user approved by the network) wireless access point (WAP). MITM attacks are orchestrated by intercepting a valid authentication granted by a network with a one-way authentication setup to any valid Media Access Connection (MAC). With the user's legitimate access as a shield, the MITM has full access to the data flowing in and out of a user's computer.
Where the attacker or the attacking program sits between the sender and the receiver in such a way that both parties think they are talking to each other, when in reality they are both talking to the attacker.
BlackHat accomplishes a MIM by substituting his public key for Alice's public key. Then Bob mistakenly encrypts with BlackHat's public key instead of Alice's public key. BlackHat intercepts Bob's message to Alice and encrypts it with Alice's public key so that no one suspects the subterfuge. Just because public keys need not be concealed, doesn't mean public keys can just be sent (or stored) without protection.
An attack intended to compromise VPN communications. Occurs due to poor handling of encryption key exchanges. If two parties exchange unprotected keys, a sophisticated attacker can use a number of methods to intercept the keys and substitute his or her own, causing the parties to be unknowingly communicating with the attacker in the middle.
In cryptography, a man-in-the-middle attack (MITM) is an attack in which an attacker is able to read, insert and modify at will, messages between two parties without either party knowing that the link between them has been compromised. The attacker must be able to observe and intercept messages going between the two victims. The MITM attack can work against public-key cryptography and is also particularly applicable to the original Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol, when used without authentication.