Question

1.Consider a two-way communication between John and Jane in which both want to exchange messages privately over a network. A third party, Tom wants also wants to know what messages are being exchanged between John and Jane. Explain what specific type of cybersecurity attack describes Tom’s malicious intentions of intercepting the private exchanges between John and Jane and how it can be carried out without being detected

Answer 1

MITM i.e Man-in-the-Middle Attack which is also called as Monster-in-the-middle attack or Machine-in-the-middle attack will describe Tom’s malicious intentions of intercepting the private exchanges between John and Jane.

The process of intercepting the private messages between John and Jane is done without detection by the following:

• John will ask Jane to send his Public key. If Jane sends public key but Tom will intercept it so MITM attack will begin.
• Tom will send a forged message to John which appears to be original from Jane, but instead it includes Tom's public key.
• John will believe this public key to be Jane's and will encrypts Jane's message with Tom's key and sends the enciphered message back to Jane.
• Tom again intercepts and deciphers the message using John's private key, possibly alters it if he wants and re-enciphers it using the public key John intercepted from Jane when he originally tried to send it to John.
• Jane receives the newly enciphered message and believe it came from John.
• Tom will secretly transfer and also alters the private messages between John and Jane who are believing that they are directly communicating with each other.
• Tom will make independent connections with John and Jane and later Tom will transfer the messages between both of them so to build trust and they does not find difficulty while talking directly to each other over a private connection.
• The fact is that the entire conversation will be controlled by Tom.