Eavesdropping is a common thing that requires two different parties to get through. Suppose that you are standing in a bar and overhearing two gentlemen talking with each other along the aisle. Now you are also standing along the aisle waiting for your drink to come up and are listening to their conversation quite innocently, this is also eavesdropping but not evasive or filled with malicious intent. But there are cyber actors out there who are looking forward to extracting the insightful information from the digital conversations by spying or eavesdropping on the people.
What is the eavesdropping attack?
Eavesdropping attack which is also known as the sniffing or snooping attack occurs when an authorized party intentionally steals, modify, or extract the essential information from the users and use it for malicious intent. Suppose in a critical business environment an employee sends over some critical business information to another party via an open network.
Now the cybercriminals already spying on the open network can extract useful information and use it for malicious intent. But if the employee is smart enough then they will be using a VPN (virtual proxy network) that is a little more secure than the open network connection but you must have authentic information about the security of your VPN connection.
The most professional and experienced attackers would be able to exploit even the most secure VPN connections by using the network sniffers to extract all the important business information from the VPN networks. That is why the eavesdropping attacks are so insidious, to begin with as you can’t really tell when a user connected with the network and what kinds of feats they are carrying out on it. It might be that the user is carrying out the feeding of sensitive information, passwords, account numbers, sharing the schedule of the employees, or other important information with the outside world.
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There are many things and vulnerabilities these attackers leverage from when trying to initiate a successful eavesdropping attack. You might not initially know about them but here is a quick update on those elements;
Weak passwords; By choosing to stick with the weak or old passwords and not changing them for far too long you are actually leaving the door wide open for a malicious criminal or actor to come along and nest their way into your network. Once your password detail is compromised the attackers can easily come around the secretive information lingering around the open networking channels and pat themselves to a great treat.
Working remotely; Employees when working together in an office are protected well by the security standards the workplace has to offer and are also connected with a secured network. But the employees who are not permanent or work remotely from different sites might connect with weaker or potentially insecure networks out there and be extremely prone to an eavesdropping attack.
Frail networks; these are the types of networks that are not even protected by any kind of encryption or require a password from the users in order for them to connect with them. These are the weakest out there and provide the necessary elements required by an eavesdropping professional to set up an attack for you.
Impact of the eavesdropping attack
No attack ever which has been shared online or physically is without an imminent consequence, the same goes for the eavesdropping attack. Eavesdropping attacks without any intent don’t pose any threat whatsoever to the business or otherwise private parties. But if there is a malicious intent involved then the caliber of the attack could be even viler than anticipated by the victim. Following are some of the impacts left behind by the eavesdropping attack;
Loss of privacy; Every business out there has some sort of information that must be remained secret and protected at all costs. But when the malicious attackers decide to take that information on a public level then trouble caves in. The vital information reaching the wrong hands is a clear violation of the business's privacy.
Identity theft; this is the most common consequence of the eavesdropping attack, suppose two colleagues are talking with each other about some important stuff. They suddenly start exchanging the credentials with each other about something particular and an attacker is eavesdropping on them, what happens next? Before you know it the culprit has access to all the information and can imitate now as the person of interest themselves, thus stealing valuable information and wreaking havoc in their wake.
Financial loss; When an attacker or hacker has access to all this important business information what would they do with it? Of course, they would reach out to the highest bidder of the information or seek the competitors of that business to the trade-off that information with them for money.
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