What is PKI hijacking, and how does installing a rogue Certificate Authority certificate enable attackers to intercept and decrypt HTTPS traffic? Learn why PKI hijacking undermines trust in secure communications—essential for CompTIA Security+ (Plus) SY0-701 exam success.
Table of Contents
Question
An attacker successfully installs a rogue Certificate Authority (CA) certificate on victims’ devices, allowing them to intercept and decrypt HTTPS traffic. What type of attack is this?
A. Man-in-the-middle
B. SSL stripping
C. DNS poisoning
D. TLS downgrade attack
E. PKI hijacking
Answer
E. PKI hijacking
Explanation
By installing a rogue CA certificate, the attacker can generate valid-looking SSL certificates for any site, allowing them to decrypt encrypted traffic without raising security warnings.
When an attacker successfully installs a rogue Certificate Authority (CA) certificate on victims’ devices, allowing interception and decryption of HTTPS traffic, this is known as PKI hijacking.
PKI hijacking involves compromising the trust model of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) by introducing a rogue or unauthorized CA certificate into a device’s trusted root store. This allows the attacker to issue valid-looking certificates for any website, which the victim’s device will trust without warning.
With a rogue CA certificate, the attacker can perform man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks by generating fraudulent SSL/TLS certificates for targeted domains. The victim’s browser or application will accept these certificates as legitimate, enabling the attacker to intercept, decrypt, and even alter HTTPS traffic without triggering security alerts.
This attack undermines the entire chain of trust in secure communications, as it enables the attacker to impersonate any website, steal credentials, inject malware, or eavesdrop on confidential data.
PKI hijacking is distinct from SSL stripping or session hijacking because it directly compromises the certificate trust mechanism, not just the transport encryption or session tokens.
Notable real-world incidents include cases where compromised or malicious CAs issued certificates for major domains, enabling large-scale interception of secure communications.
PKI hijacking occurs when a rogue CA certificate is installed, allowing attackers to generate trusted certificates for any site, intercept and decrypt HTTPS traffic, and compromise the security of encrypted communications.
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