Man in the Middle (MITM) is a famous online attack aiming to intercept connections between computer systems. It usually targets stealing sensitive information such as login credentials and credit card details.
Man in the Middle is famous in the web environment for targeting website communications. Attackers insert themselves between web servers and browsers, so they secretly listen to the communications, steal exchanged data, and possibly alter messages in their favor.
Does HTTPS prevent Man in the Middle attacks?
HTTPS protocol is efficient in preventing Man in the Middle attacks. It relies on strong encryption mechanisms to protect sensitive information while being exchanged between websites and their visitors.
Risk of Man In The Middle Attacks
In web systems, an MITM attack starts by intercepting the connection between web servers (websites) and clients (browsers). This basically happens by hacking the network via any of the many devices or systems that handle the connection, like WiFi routers, ISP networks, and DNS servers.
As attackers gain access to the network, they listen to and analyze the transmitted data to detect and steal sensitive information. They can also alter exchanged messages, inject new malicious ones, or redirect the request to a completely different destination.
All this takes place secretly so communicating parties don’t actually know their communications are being intercepted.
How Does HTTPS Prevent Man In The Middle?
HTTPS protocol is an extended version of the plain HTTP protocol. It adds a security layer to protect data while in transit.
HTTPS uses the TLS cryptographic protocol to encrypt communications over a computer network. This mechanism makes use of pairs of related keys (public and private keys) to encrypt/decrypt information using a very strong hashing algorithm.
This encryption is vital in preventing MITM attacks because it implements three key security measures:
- HTTPS turns the connection data into an encrypted format, so attackers can’t read the information if they could manage to hack into the network.
- HTTPS ensures the information was not altered, as any modification will be easily detected by the encryption/decryption mechanism.
- HTTPS verifies the communication is established with the requested website, so the connection can’t be handled by a fake recipient.
To do so, HTTPS requires issuing a TLS/SSL certificate that holds the public key and is used to encrypt the information and verify the identity of the visited website. Fortunately, these certificates can be issued for free from a set of trustworthy providers.