Question

Give the similarities between network sniffing and wiretapping ?

Why are they considered as passive threats ?

Answer 1

Network sniffing means monitoring and sniffing the datas and information that are being transferred over the computer networks. The tools which are used to perform this work are known as network sniffer.

Wiretapping is method of monitoring and sniffing the electronic communication devices like telephone, fax, telegram, or any communication system which is based on internet.

Both methods are used to capture the datas or messages from the network. Both these methods only copies and retrieve the datas but do not alter or change the existing message or datas. Both these techniques if used wisely can be helpful in solving many criminal cases.

Passive threats are kind of threats that only captures and copies the datas or messages from the network. They don't alter or modify the messages or datas of the network. Both network sniffing and wiretapping are considered as passive threats because they only copies and captures the datas from network but don't alter or change the existing datas.

Hence, they both are considered as passive threats.