Vulnerable Cryptographic Algorithm for Man-in-the-Middle Attack

We-are-secure Server's Cryptographic Algorithm

Question

John works as a professional Ethical Hacker.

He has been assigned the project of testing the security of www.we-are-secure.com.

John notices that the We-are- secure network is vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack since the key exchange process of the cryptographic algorithm it is using does not thenticate participants.

Which of the following cryptographic algorithms is being used by the We-are-secure server?

Answers

Explanations

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A. B. C. D.

D.

The cryptographic algorithm used by the We-are-secure server that is vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack due to the lack of participant authentication in the key exchange process is likely the Diffie-Hellman key exchange algorithm.

The Diffie-Hellman key exchange algorithm is a widely-used cryptographic algorithm that allows two parties to establish a shared secret key over an insecure communication channel without requiring any prior shared secret between them. The key exchange process involves the use of a public and private key pair for each party.

During the key exchange process, both parties exchange public keys, which are used to compute a shared secret key. However, without participant authentication, a third party can potentially intercept the communication and replace one of the public keys with their own. In this scenario, the third party would have the ability to decrypt and modify all messages sent between the two parties, hence the man-in-the-middle vulnerability.

Blowfish and Twofish are both symmetric key algorithms that do not involve key exchange processes, and therefore are not relevant to this scenario. RSA is a public key algorithm that can be used for key exchange, but it does involve participant authentication, and therefore is not likely to be the algorithm in use for the We-are-secure server that is vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack.