COMMON ATTACK PATTERN ENUMERATION AND CLASSIFICATIONLive MITRE record

CAPEC-117

Interception

An adversary monitors data streams to or from the target for information gathering purposes. This attack may be undertaken to solely gather sensitive information or to support a further attack against the target. This attack pattern can involve sniffing network traffic as well as other types of data streams (e.g. radio). The adversary can attempt to initiate the establishment of a data stream or passively observe the communications as they unfold. In all variants of this attack, the adversary is not the intended recipient of the data stream. In contrast to other means of gathering information (e.g., targeting data leaks), the adversary must actively position themself so as to observe explicit data channels (e.g. network traffic) and read the content. However, this attack differs from a Adversary-In-the-Middle ( CAPEC-94 ) attack, as the adversary does not alter the content of the communications nor forward data to the intended recipient.

Abstraction

Meta

Typical severity

Medium

Likelihood of attack

Low

Understand the attack

What is this attack pattern?

An adversary monitors data streams to or from the target for information gathering purposes. This attack may be undertaken to solely gather sensitive information or to support a further attack against the target. This attack pattern can involve sniffing network traffic as well as other types of data streams (e.g. radio). The adversary can attempt to initiate the establishment of a data stream or passively observe the communications as they unfold. In all variants of this attack, the adversary is not the intended recipient of the data stream. In contrast to other means of gathering information (e.g., targeting data leaks), the adversary must actively position themself so as to observe explicit data channels (e.g. network traffic) and read the content. However, this attack differs from a Adversary-In-the-Middle ( CAPEC-94 ) attack, as the adversary does not alter the content of the communications nor forward data to the intended recipient.

Requirements

What does the attack require?

Prerequisites

  • The target must transmit data over a medium that is accessible to the adversary.

Skills required

Not stated in the MITRE record.

Resources required

  • The adversary must have the necessary technology to intercept information passing between the nodes of a network. For TCP/IP, the capability to run tcpdump, ethereal, etc. can be useful. Depending upon the data being targeted the technological requirements will change.

Impact

What does a successful attack lead to?

Read Data

Affected scopes: Confidentiality

Defence

How is it prevented and mitigated?

1
Leverage encryption to encode the transmission of data thus making it accessible only to authorized parties.
CAPEC-117: Interception — DayBreach Saldırı Sözlüğü · DayBreach