Compression Ratio Info-leak Made Easy (CRIME) Attack
Compression Ratio Info-leak Made Easy (CRIME) attack is a security vulnerability that can be exploited within some secure HTTP connections, where the attacker can retrieve confidential information using the timing of the connection’s compression.
Let’s say you wanted to access a secure website that required a username and password. Normally, this information would be encrypted to protect it from prying eyes. However, if the website uses a compression algorithm to optimize data transfer, an attacker could potentially use the timing of the compression to infer the length of the password.
This can be done by repeatedly sending manipulated data to the website and measuring the size of the compressed data that the website responds with. By guessing different characters of the password and monitoring the size of the compressed data, an attacker can eventually determine the length of the password.
Once the length of the password is known, the attacker can use a brute force method to guess the actual password. This can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive information such as banking accounts, personal data, and more.
It’s important to note that CRIME attacks can be prevented by disabling HTTP compression on secure connections. Additionally, using longer, more complex passwords can make it harder for attackers to guess the password through this method.