What is Man-in-the-Middle?

A man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack occurs when an attacker secretly intercepts and potentially alters communication between two parties who believe they are communicating directly with each other. Common MITM techniques include ARP spoofing, DNS hijacking, and SSL stripping. Penetration testers perform MITM attacks to test whether network communications are properly encrypted and whether systems are vulnerable to interception.