Man-in-the-Middle Attack

A Man-in-the-Middle attack is a form of cyber exploitation where an attacker secretly intercepts and potentially alters the communication between two parties who believe they are directly communicating with each other. In financial markets, this could involve an attacker sitting between a trader and an exchange to manipulate order flow or steal session tokens.

Because the participants are unaware of the intrusion, the attacker can execute unauthorized trades or redirect funds. This threat is particularly potent in environments where unencrypted or poorly authenticated connections are used.

U2F and other strong authentication methods are specifically designed to mitigate this by ensuring that the session is cryptographically bound to the intended destination. Detecting such attacks is difficult, making proactive prevention through secure protocols essential for institutional-grade security.