what is Men In The Middle Attack?

Men In The Middle Attack

"Men in the middle is a security attack, which is based on eavesdropping, being used to get sensitive information transmitting between user and server by means of getting access or entry in the middle with the help of relay/proxy to eavesdrop in sensitive information."

MITM(Men In The Middle) is a very common attack, which is also termed as Meet In The Middle attack is a kind of eavesdropping attack to listen or gain access on private conversation or data being transferred between user and the server without user and server consent. Men In The Middle Attack is used to breach AES(Advanced Encryption Standard) algorithm used in encryption. Because AES works on Symmetric key encryption, so if an intruder takes place in between or middle he can sniff key to decrypt the data.

How Does it work

Men In The Middle attack works in a very simple manner, a hacker or an intruder gain access in between a private conversation or data transferring session and behaves like data is directly transferring from the authentic server to the authentic user and vice versa, but in actual the data is being compromised in the middle by a hacker or intruder. The main connection between user and server broken and then both server and user are connected with the middle system or compromised system so that all data can be transferred through the compromised PC or hacker's PC.

Lets have a look into a scenario, bob and betsy communicating with each other, in this conversation an intruder gain access in this chat now betsy ask bob to his account no. to transfer funds (remember all messages being passed through hacker and if he wants he can reply you instead Bob) now hacker read the chat and send his own account number to betsy, then betsy send money to the hacker and they both don't know what is happening but when they get it. It is too late.

How to protect yourself from MITM attack

In order to protect yourself you need to be aware while surfing online that the site you are surfing or using for transactions is secured by HTTPS or VPN. Today HTTPS is also not secure but not that easy to break. Only use sites which displays green padlock in URL bar. Please do not use expired certificate site which displays a crossed HTTPS in your browser's URL bar. You can trust HTTPS because it is verified by SSL certificate means the server and resources you are using are reliable and provides you a secure channel which protects you from malicious users and hackers or from MITM attack too.

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