Hack the Route Start free Open app Interception
Downgrade attack
An attacker in the path makes two sides settle for a weaker protocol, version or cipher than both support, then breaks that.
SSL stripping: the user types bank.com, so the browser starts on plain HTTP. The attacker in the middle
keeps the victim on HTTP and talks HTTPS to the bank itself, swallowing the redirect, and reads everything. HSTS
stops it: a Strict-Transport-Security header (or the browsers' preload list) tells the browser to use only HTTPS for
that site from then on, so it never sends the plain request.
Version and cipher downgrade: the attacker breaks the first handshakes so the client retries with an older version, or tampers with the offer so a weak cipher is chosen; POODLE pushed connections back to SSL 3.0 this way. The defence is to have nothing weak to fall to: SSL, TLS 1.0 and 1.1 and weak ciphers disabled on both ends. TLS 1.3 signs the whole handshake and marks the server's random value when it agrees to an older version, so a client that supports 1.3 notices a forced fallback.
WPA3 transition mode, one SSID accepting WPA2-PSK and WPA3-SAE together for old devices, lets an evil twin that offers only WPA2 draw a WPA3-capable client into a WPA2 handshake, which can be cracked offline. WPA3-only networks, with protected management frames required, close it.