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I am downloading a file from a http site on an wifi network. Is it possible(even theoretically) to change the contents of the file(or replace it with a malicious variant) during the download process?

Mayank Singh
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Yes, an attacker can perform a man-in-the-middle attack against your requests over the network and replace the file your requested with his -malicious- own.

  • That means that the attack will also be possible on a MITM'd https connection? – Mayank Singh Aug 27 '15 at 06:36
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    @MayankSingh no, and that is one of the advantages of HTTPS –  Aug 27 '15 at 06:38
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    This is not a 100% correct. There are possible weaknesses in SSL that allow for attacks. E.g. i remember signed certificates being compromised some years ago.

    Or remember the [Goto-Fail] (https://gotofail.com/) from MacOS? That one rendered SSL completely useless.

    If you want to have a better insight, this stackoverflow question should do it: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14907581/ssl-and-man-in-the-middle-misunderstanding

     – Gewure Aug 27 '15 at 07:37
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    @Gewure Yes, nothing is 100%, you can always allure a malinformed user visiting an HTTPS url to an HTTP one, but you can not perform MITM on HTTPS protocol. Maybe you can read the answer to this: –  Aug 27 '15 at 07:51
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    @Gewure http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/8145/does-https-prevent-man-in-the-middle-attacks-by-proxy-server –  Aug 27 '15 at 07:57