Securing data transmission between two parties over a network is vital. How do I check my TLS traffic?
How Do I Check My TLS Traffic?
OpenSSL is a command-line tool used to connect to servers via TLS or to generate certificates. To use OpenSSL to check your TLS traffic, you need to install it first. Instructions on how to install OpenSSL are available here. Once you have OpenSSL installed, you can test your connection.
The benefit of checking network traffic is you can ensure that the device you are connecting to is the device you think it is. So, all data between your device and the server is transferred using TLS if it should be. OpenSSL has a command-line option called verify which allows you to generate certificates that you can use to check your TLS traffic.
Again, you will get an error message if there is something wrong with your certificate and a success message if everything checks out. Once you have checked your TLS traffic, then you can configure your application to trust the certificate that was generated by OpenSSL. For example, in Ruby this can be done with:
Network Traffic Analysis
Network traffic analysis is a technique used to identify the type of application that is being used on a network. There are several ways to perform network traffic analysis. If you have access to packet capture equipment, such as a wiretap, then you can capture the data on the network and inspect it manually.
This method is less than ideal because it takes a lot of time and is prone to human error. A better option is to use a network traffic analysis tool. There are many network traffic analysis tools available today, but one of the most popular ones is Wireshark.
Wireshark allows you to capture data on a machine. It is useful if you don’t have physical access to the machines on the network that you want to analyze. Then it lets you inspect that data from a GUI.
It also has some advanced features such as being able to strip away SSL protection from TLS traffic. So that you can view the data in clear text. A demo of some of Wireshark’s features can be seen here.
Packet Analysis
Packet analysis involves inspecting individual packets to get additional information about them. The best way to perform packet analysis is with software called tcpdump. Tcpdump allows you to see all packets that pass through your machine by setting up a filter and then save the output.
A man-in-the-middle attack is a type of attack where an attacker intercepts the communication between two parties. This makes it possible for the attacker to get information about both parties. Man-in-the-middle attacks are normally performed with a program called Ettercap.
Several different methods can be used to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks. But one of the most effective methods is to use encrypted connections. This is because the man in the middle attacks works by being able to read packets sent between a client and server.