Replay attack

A replay attack is a security threat where an attacker intercepts the communication between a network sender and receiver, then either delays the message or re-transmits it. A replay attack is a technique used by hackers to deceive a receiver into doing what they want.

The goal of these attacks can be to either impersonate another individual, enable unauthorized access to a particular system, or commit fraud; for instance, a sender’s credentials can be intercepted by an attacker in order to transmit more cash than they originally intended in a transaction.

Regardless of encryption, replay attacks may still happen because all it takes is for hackers to simply siphon the message as is.

Luckily, they can be prevented by implementing stronger digital signatures such as the inclusion of time codes for each communication exchange, and other unique identifiers for every transaction. Another valuable security recommendation is to create a single-use session key that can be employed to add another security layer for transaction authentications.