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My question is about networking. I'm just looking for a simple answer, yet I couldn't find one after 1 hour research. I know there are techniques such as Wi-Fi Hotspot, man-in-the-middle-attack, local network, echo switch, etc. But I couldn't find an answer to my specific question. Let's say, client A wants to communicate with server B, and server B says client A must authenticate himself via HTTP basic authentication first. My question is, what happens if client A sends the authentication credentials via HTTP layer (insecure), who can read the HTTP headers that the client A sends to server B over the internet? Would it be easy to do that? Like placing a breakpoint between two arbitrary routers, which help to transfer the packets across the internet, in order to read those headers? How does it work in general?

Thank you!

PS.: I am not trying to learn and do it. I just want to know, how dangerous it would be, if the HTTP basic auth is made via the insecure HTTP layer.

J. Doe
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Who can read the HTTP headers that the client A sends to server B over the internet?

  • Your Network Provider (e.g Wi-fi hotspot Provider).
  • Your Domain Name System server (DNS, as 192.168.1.1).
  • Your Internet Service Provider (ISP).
  • Your Virtual Private Network if using one (VPN server).
  • Yourself Or a Virus.

and here comes the HTTPS (HTTP + SSL Encryption)
SSL is about communicating in a language that you and the server only understand.

How dangerous it would be if the HTTP basic auth is made via the insecure HTTP layer?

Well, from above, You can totally get that a simple virus or even a public Wi-fi Hotspot Device can capture and see all of your data if the communication was done in a plain HTTP Socket.

A Simple packet may contain all of your Device information including its basic contents as your passwords, credit cards information, The HTML form for the signup/login that you've just completed with all its data, VoIP Calls and messages being sent to the server + upcoming/received ones.

that's why we need SSL encryption and the server should have a valid SSL certificate too.

By the way, your device may have sent thousands of packets while you read this now!

Capturing the packets that your device sends or even the packets that other devices on your network send can be done through any packet capturing tool or software as Wireshark.

Beyondo
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  • Thank you so much for those infos! Actually I use Linux as OP, so I have no reason to be afraid of a virus in the first place. :D Let's assume my network is also secure (I use a private network over LAN) My question was actually all about, whether someone, sitting on the other side of the world, can simply read the TCP packets that get transferred between the Client A and Server B during the HTTP basic authentication. But apparently to do that, he needs to hack one of those TCP/IP Routers that stand in between. – J. Doe May 18 '18 at 20:15