It is common knowledge that unencrypted messages sent over an unsecured
Internet connection *can* be viewed in clear text and thus the contents
compromised. My questions:
1. Is it really easy? How readily available are sniffing tools that
can do this?
Any common sniffing tool can allow to do that, sometimes with minor
alteration.
2. Can it be done from a user's home dial up or DSL type connection?
Can someone in California somehow be scanning mail leaving a New York
location?
basically, someone would need to compromise one of the mail servers between
the sender and the recipient, so yes it is possible, but no it's not
possible for
everyone.
3. Outside of government agencies that have access to selected ISP's,
how likely is it that a company could be targeted by an outside person
or organization?
it still depends on wether or not a mail server is compromised somewhere.
veins
