It’s been over 3 weeks since Firesheep was released, and yet still there seem to be so many misconceptions about this particular vulnerability. The most prevalent of these misconceptions is that HTTP Session Hijacking, also known as “sidejacking” is something which is limited to only wireless networks. And this belief is not limited to just session hijacking attacks. Somewhere along the way a myth was propagated that wired switched networks are somehow impervious to attacks like these and other similar types of attacks because of the use of collision domains and the inability of an attacker to have unfettered access to the Layer 2 medium. As I mentioned in my previous article on the Misconceptions About Sidejacking with Firesheep, attacks like these and others are not relegated to strictly wireless networks, and in fact there are many so-called Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks which can be performed on a switched wired network to compromise the imaginary security of a Layer 2 collision domain.
Continue reading “Man in the Middle (MITM) Attacks Explained: ARP Poisoining”
