Have you ever had your friend text for you while you were driving? You tell them what to say, they read you the response, and on it goes.
But what if you looked back at your phone later and realized their report of the conversation or transcription of your message wasn’t completely accurate? Or what if the person you were texting had no idea there was someone else in the middle of the conversation and shared information they wouldn’t have if they’d known?
Hopefully, your friends are more trustworthy than this, but hackers going after your business’s information aren’t. Learn what a man-in-the-middle attack is, how it works, and how you can stay safe from it in this article.
What Is a Man-in-the-Middle Attack?
A man-in-the-middle attack is when a hacker secretly intercepts and alters the communication between two parties without them knowing. It’s like a spy cracking a secret message and changing it before it gets to the intended recipient, all undetected.
The goal of a man-in-the-middle attack is to collect sensitive information and use it maliciously. Consequently, the banking, finance, and healthcare industries are big targets, along with any business that holds large amounts of information. Additionally, hackers will often target small and mid-sized businesses because they typically don’t have strong security measures.
In the end, hackers are after sensitive information and money, so any organization that can give them that is at risk.
How Do Man-in-the-Middle Attacks Work?
So how do they do it? Hackers start by using a packet sniffer, a proxy, or an open vulnerability, which are essentially a nosy neighbor from the 50s who listens to the entire street’s calls through the party line, hoping to get some good gossip. In the case of a man-in-the-middle attack, they’re looking for insecure data or information to access a sensitive website.
Once the hacker has found an insecure website, they’ll watch for a user to access it. When someone does attempt to log in to that site, the attacker reroutes them to a false site that looks and acts like the original. This phase is called interception, where the hacker positions themselves between the user and the application the user intends to communicate with.
From there, criminals can collect information like passwords, bank account numbers, etc., that the user enters into the fake site and then use them on the real site or to perform other malicious tasks. This step is called decryption, where the attacker retrieves and uses the data they steal.
The Nitty Gritty Details
Unfortunately, there are many ways hackers can go about this process. Here are just a few of the common methods for performing a man-in-the-middle attack that you should be aware of:
- Email Hijacking: Attackers gain unauthorized access to an email account to intercept, read, and manipulate communications.
- Session Hijacking: Cybercriminals exploit active web sessions by impersonating a user to gain access to web applications and sites.
- ARP Cache Poisoning: MAC addresses for a device are connected to the IP address for the wrong (often malicious) website, creating an interception point.
- IP Spoofing: Attackers forge the IP address in packets to mislead recipients regarding the sender’s true identity to bypass security measures and access restricted information.
- Wi-Fi Eavesdropping: Cybercriminals intercept unencrypted data transmitted over a Wi-Fi network, enabling them to steal sensitive information.
- Stealing Browser Cookies: Hackers capture session cookies stored in a web browser to impersonate authenticated users and access their accounts without needing passwords.
- Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Hijacking: Attackers manipulate the SSL process to create an unsecured connection, allowing them to intercept and manipulate data exchanged between the user and a supposedly secure site.
- DNS Spoofing: DNS records are changed to redirect traffic from legitimate websites to fraudulent ones, allowing important data to be stolen.
How Can I Recognize an Invasion?
Have you ever seen the URL for Google written with two zeros instead of o’s? Slight manipulations like these or any strange looking URLs are a sure sign of danger—never click on them and follow company policy for reporting suspicious cyber activity.
If transactions are more glitchy than usual or take strangely long to complete, you could be experiencing a man-in-the-middle attack. These or any other questionable activities should be reported to your IT company immediately.
How Can I Prevent an Attack?
When you team up with a reliable IT company, there’s a lot you can do to protect yourself from a man-in-the-middle attack. Here are just a few of the strategies you could employ:
- Strong Encryption: Use strong encryption methods for all communications and ensure that all websites and links are secured.
- Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Require users to provide multiple forms of identification before accessing sensitive information, making it harder for hackers to replicate their credentials.
- Basic Measures: Follow cybersecurity best practices with things like firewalls, antivirus and antimalware applications, and intrusion detection systems.
- Secure WiFi: Always use a secure WiFi connection with a password, especially when handling sensitive information, to prevent cyber criminals from intercepting your data.
- Virtual Private Network (VPN): VPNs encrypt all internet traffic within your network to conceal your IP address, making it difficult for attackers to track your online activities and access transmitted data.
- Zero Trust: Adopt a Zero Trust security model where all users, inside or outside the organization, are continuously verified before gaining access to network resources, minimizing the risk of unauthorized access.
- Awareness: Research has found that between 88 and 95% of security breaches are due to employee errors. Keep yourself out of that statistic by teaching your team to use only trusted WiFi, log out, clear cookies regularly, heed browser warnings about insecure connections, and be wary of unknown links or strange URLs.
- Managed Detection and Response (MDR): Some security services need more than just monitoring. A managed response is appropriate in some cases.
Avoid Eavesdroppers with Run Networks
For over 15 years, Run Networks has worked hard to protect businesses like yours from cyberattacks of all kinds. We know how hard you work to build your organization, and we value the things that make your business unique. That’s why we’re dedicated to offering custom security solutions to keep your business safe. Contact us today to get started.
