Any time there’s a variable on your network that you can’t control, the network becomes vulnerable. With data leaks and malicious hacks reaching the news every week, it’s important for your brand and your business that data stays as locked down as possible. Do precisely that by controlling as many variables as possible, starting with devices.
What Is a Man-in-the-Middle Attack?
Devices on your business’s network communicate. Anything from a new email to an attached spreadsheet is being sent from one device to another, and that path has a lot of steps along the way. A man-in-the-middle attack creates an extra step, or replaces existing steps altogether, in order to gain access to the information being sent.
A basic attack just gives monitoring access. For example, a virus on a device can insert itself between a user clicking a button to complete an action and the action being completed: an employee sends an email, and that email is sent to the attacker’s computer, which automatically sends a copy to the original recipient. Both the sender and the recipient don’t know that the email took an extra step or that the data exists somewhere else.
But it can get even worse when man-in-the-middle attacks let a malicious party change the information, too. If a customer or vendor sends bank account or credit card information and a key to authorize payment, even on a secured platform, that information goes to the hacker first. Not only do they have that information, which could be a PCI violation, they can replace it with their own information. Then, when your employee uses that information to send money or to invoice an automated system, the money is rerouted to the attacker.
While business networks and corporate devices are also susceptible to the malware that allows man-in-the-middle attacks, you can control the security programs that detect and delete them. When your employees use their own devices, you can only control the network. For more reasons to use corporate-controlled devices and disallow BYOD policies, go to Kotori Technologies, LLC. here.