\ka In cryptography and computer security a man in the middle attack MITM is an attack where the attacker secretly relays and possibly alters the communications between two parties who believe that they are directly communicating with each other One example of a MITM attack is active eavesdropping in which the attacker makes independent connections with the victims and relays messages between them to make them believe they are talking directly to each other over a private connection when in fact the entire conversation is controlled by the attacker \sk