In this article, we go over the man-in-the-middle attack definition and discuss the different types of these attacks. We'll take a deep dive into the dangers of man-in-the-middle attacks and address some examples. By the end of this article, you'll have a complete understanding of how a man-in-the-middle attack works and how to detect and prevent one.
A man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack is a cyber attack in which a threat actor puts themselves in the middle of two parties, typically a user and an application, to intercept their communications and data exchanges and use them for malicious purposes like making unauthorized purchases or hacking.
By secretly standing between the user and a trusted system, such as a website or application, a cybercriminal can easily obtain sensitive data. The user assumes they're interacting exclusively with a trustworthy site and willingly relinquishes login credentials, financial information, or other compromising data.
Estimates show that 35% of exploitation activity involves man-in-the-middle attacks.
Cybercriminals either listen in on the interactions by inserting themselves between a line of internet communications or directly impersonate a party through website spoofing for man-in-the-middle attacks. As logins and data entries occur, a hacker can obtain the information to steal someone's identity, access or control a user's account, make purchases or fund transfers, or breach a perimeter into an organization's network.
Man-in-the-middle attacks offer hackers a path to intercept sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, and bank account details. It's dangerous because the user has no idea there is another presence between them and the application they're interacting with or that their data is rerouting to a malicious party.
Once a criminal has this information, they can manipulate account credentials, steal funds, or make unauthorized purchases. Because of its scope, MITM attackers often target banking, online retailers, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform customers.
Nearly 58% of all posts on criminal forums and marketplaces contain banking data of others collected by MITM or other attack types.
Man-in-the-middle attacks are often used as an initial gateway for long-term advanced persistent threat (APT) campaigns within organizations. By obtaining a user's credentials for specific applications, hackers can penetrate numerous points on the attack surface to make their way into an entire network to mine company data, disrupt production environments, or take over the entire IT infrastructure.
A man-in-the-middle attack in cyber security qualifies as any circumstance where a threat actor places themselves between a user and an entity such as a network, website, or application to obtain information. The method by which hackers obtain that information varies using different forms of spoofing, a method of impersonating trusted online entities or websites. The main types of MITM attacks include:
Business email compromise (BEC), an incident that commonly leads to email hijacking, resulted in over $1.8 billion made by scammers in 2020.
3% of all phishing attacks are carried out through malicious websites, assisting in IP, HTTPS, and DNS spoofing attacks.
Man-in-the-middle attacks cause significant harm to businesses and their customers. Here are a few real examples of MITM attacks that took some organizations by storm:
In 2017, there was a confirmed data breach at Equifax that exposed over 143 million Americans. As a result, Equifax created a website called equifaxsecurity2017.com to let customers see whether the breach impacted them. The issue was that the website used a shared SSL for hosting—with thousands of other websites using the same certificate. DNS (through fake websites) and SSL spoofing took place to redirect users to a phony website or intercept data from the site.
2.5 million customers were impacted by the man-in-the-middle attacks, putting the total at 145.5 million for the total incident at Equifax.
A 2014 incident occurred when Lenovo distributed computers with Superfish Visual Search adware. This made it possible to create and deploy ads on encrypted web pages and alter SSL certificates to add their own — so attackers could view web activity and login data while someone was browsing on Chrome or Internet Explorer.
Security software vendors like Microsoft and McAfee coordinated directly with Lenovo to make software updates just after a few days of discovering the vulnerability to remove Superfish adware.
Both consumers and businesses can fall victim to MITM incidents in their respective capacities.
Customers who are tricked into connecting to a phony Wi-Fi network, entering a spoofed website, or communicating with a hijacked email account risk having their information tracked, stolen, and used for harm. In particular, users of any website or application that requires a login authentication process or stores financial data make ideal targets.
Alternatively, businesses with interactive websites and software apps that store a lot of customer information could find themselves at high risk. In addition to operation slowdowns from mitigating or responding to a man-in-the-middle attack, the recovery process of handling legal liability issues and rebuilding brand trust makes it essential for firms to allocate resources toward detecting and protecting against a MITM attack.
The man-in-the-middle attack process has a two-stage approach: interception and decryption.
During the interception step, the cybercriminal attempts to put themselves between the client and server—typically a user and web application. Depending on the type of man-in-the-middle attack, there are a few ways the attacker could approach this:
After targets are determined and fall for the bait, cybercriminals use data capture tools to transmit any login information and web activity back to them and decrypt it into readable text. During the decryption phase, the intercepted data becomes usable to the criminal.
For example, the cybercriminal will take login credentials captured from the fake website and use them on the actual one. From there, they could change the user's password, steal vital financial information, or use the credentials for longer-term initiatives such as a company network or a more severe attack.
Cybercriminals, researchers, and other professionals commonly utilize automation and intelligence tools to target or orchestrate penetration testing in an IT environment. For the most part, MITM software lets users scan networks to find vulnerabilities and potentially weak passwords. Some of the most popular MITM attack software tools include:
While man-in-the-middle attack prevention is the ideal scenario, early identification of MITM threats leads to smooth and swift mitigation. Here are a few man-in-the-middle attack symptoms and detection methods:
Putting your teams in a proactive position to defend against man-in-the-middle requires a holistic framework incorporating certain best practices and technology into the mix. Here are some preventive controls you can use to protect your users and network:
Some concepts to know to get an easier grasp on a MITM attack include:
The Delinea Zero Trust Privileged Access Management (PAM) platform offers a centralized authentication, permission management, and resource visibility solution. Administrators can easily manage their network, applications, and users with top-quality cybersecurity controls specific to man-in-the-middle attacks.
Delinea helps you prevent and detect MITM attacks through MFA implementation, secure remote access tools, and the use of request signatures that validate the time and payload of client application requests to prevent data interceptions. Delinea can be used alongside your VPN or replace it altogether. Organizations can also enforce least privilege access based on roles and approvals while continuously collecting data for activity and weblogs.
In a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack, the three main participants are the victim, the entity the victim is communicating with, and the attacker. The victim is typically an unsuspecting user who believes they are securely interacting with a trusted party, such as a website or application. The entity is the legitimate service or system the victim intends to communicate with. The attacker intercepts and manipulates the communication between the victim and the entity, often to steal sensitive information or impersonate one of the parties.
MITM happens because of an array of system vulnerabilities and incidents such as an unsecure website, email account compromises (EAC), and an uneducated user. When vulnerabilities occur where someone can spoof or hijack an IP address, DNS, SSL, website, or WiFi network, a cybercriminal can put themselves in between the user and the online service they are communicating with to complete the attack.
Information compromise is the initial effect of successful MITM attacks. Once criminals have the data they need, they can breach user accounts or financially benefit from stealing funds or purchasing items with stolen credit cards. More prolonged-term effects, specifically against organizations, occur when hackers use MITM to penetrate company networks to disrupt or shut down a production environment.
The key in MITM is properly executing the insertion point between the user and application. This means the cybercriminal must create a trustworthy WiFi network or website, access an email account, or find a way to mask an IP address well enough that the user believes they are interacting with the desired service.
Though not the same, MITM can be used as part of a Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack. DoS floods a network or server with so much false traffic that it shuts down entirely. Someone could use MITM to acquire credentials and breach a network, then deploy DoS from the inside to shut it down.
Yes, but not by itself. VPNs let you connect to the internet from a private and encrypted connection—making your data unreadable to criminals. With a VPN, you'll be able to protect against MITM if the objective is to target internet activity data of a specific user, as seen with WiFi eavesdropping and some forms of HTTPS spoofing. However, you're still vulnerable to MITM once you've entered the site, app, or network.
In man-in-the-middle attacks, cybercriminals use spoofing, hijacking, or eavesdropping techniques to put themselves between a user and services such as a web application to steal financial information or login credentials. Proper authentication, data encryption, and best practices such as avoiding non-secure WiFi or websites and constantly being aware of potential phishing or system hijacking are the best ways to protect against MITM.
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