FEATURE
When‘ secure’ isn’ t secure enough
A MitM attack is essentially a digital interception. Picture sending a confidential business proposal to a client, believing it’ s going straight to their inbox, when in reality, an attacker has positioned themselves between you and the recipient. The attacker decrypts your message, reads or modifies it, then re-encrypts it before passing it along. Both parties believe they’ re communicating securely – but they’ re not.
Such attacks have evolved alongside South Africa’ s Digital Transformation. With remote work, cloud migration and the growing use of mobile devices, the country’ s attack surface has widened. Public Wi-Fi networks in coffee shops, airports or coworking spaces often serve as launchpads for MitM attacks. At the same time, small and mediumsized businesses, many of which lack dedicated cybersecurity teams, are frequent targets.
Trust turned against you
Such attacks have evolved alongside South Africa’ s Digital Transformation.
Encryption is built on digital certificates that authenticate websites and systems. But when attackers compromise or forge these certificates, they effectively hijack trust itself. Suddenly, a fraudulent website looks legitimate. A fake login page appears genuine. A malicious system update seems routine.
In one example, attackers can use stolen certificates to intercept corporate emails and financial transactions, redirecting payments to fraudulent accounts, all under the guise of secure communication. The victims
Saurabh Prasad, Senior Solution Architect, In2IT Technologies www. intelligentcio. com
INTELLIGENT CIO AFRICA
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