As part of my ongoing CEH simulated cybersecurity consultancy project, I’ve shifted focus from system penetration testing to network traffic analysis and packet inspection using Wireshark.

Important Note: All activities were carried out in a secure lab setting for educational purposes. Ethical hacking must always be performed with proper consent and authorization.

In this phase, I delved into the world of man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks, intercepting and analyzing network traffic to uncover sensitive user information transmitted via unsecured web applications.

What I Did:

Configured Wireshark: Set up and fine-tuned Wireshark in my Windows environment to capture network traffic.

Monitored Network Traffic: Chose an active Wi-Fi connection to track both incoming and outgoing packets.

Simulated MITM Attack: Intercepted traffic on test websites like testphp.vulnweb.com to observe login requests.

Extracted User Credentials: Applied HTTP filters to analyze POST requests and reveal sensitive data like usernames and passwords.

Vulnerability Analysis: Identified weaknesses in web applications that were missing proper encryption methods.

Key Insights:

Unencrypted HTTP traffic is a major security risk, exposing sensitive information—HTTPS encryption is a must!

Packet sniffing continues to be a valuable tool for ethical hackers and penetration testers when evaluating system vulnerabilities.

Network analysis tools such as Wireshark are essential for security professionals to identify and mitigate unauthorized data interception.

Important Note: All activities were conducted in a secure lab environment for educational purposes only. Ethical hacking should always be performed with proper authorization.

Up next, I’ll be applying more advanced penetration testing techniques to continue honing my cybersecurity expertise! Stay tuned for more updates.