Transmitted Data Manipulation

Transmitted Data Manipulation is a sophisticated impact technique where attackers intercept, modify, and potentially corrupt data while it is being transmitted between systems. Operating within the Impact phase, this technique allows adversaries who have already established a foothold in a network to compromise data integrity without necessarily altering stored information at the source or destination. Attackers typically leverage man-in-the-middle positions, compromised network devices, or strategic points of interception to modify API responses, HTTP traffic, database queries, or other data in transit. This manipulation can occur at various OSI layers and may involve protocol manipulation, packet injection, or application-level interception methods such as modifying TLS libraries. The impacts of such attacks can be severe, ranging from injecting fraudulent information into business processes to subtly corrupting financial data that might go undetected until significant damage has occurred. Organizations particularly face risks when data validation mechanisms only operate at endpoints rather than validating data integrity throughout the transmission process, especially across untrusted networks or when lacking proper transport layer security implementations.