Exploring Web Security Vulnerabilities Considering Man in the Middle and Session Hijacking

Cybersecurity threats such as Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks and Session Hijacking (SH) account for over 35% of web-based cyber intrusions, causing financial losses exceeding $6 billion annually. Despite extensive research on these attacks independently, a unified analysis remains underexplored. This study bridges that gap by conducting a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) on over 150 research papers from IEEE, ACM, and ScienceDirect, comparing MITM and SH in terms of attack frequency, methodologies, vulnerabilities, and countermeasures. Our findings indicate that MITM attacks constitute 27% of credential theft incidents, exploiting weak HTTPS encryption, phony server links, and packet sniffing. In contrast, Session Hijacking is responsible for 18% of unauthorized access cases, often leveraging TCP/UDP hijacking, cookie theft, and replay attacks. The study also reveals that 70% of successful MITM and SH attacks stem from improper session security configurations. To mitigate these risks, we propose an advanced cybersecurity framework integrating real-time behavioral analytics to detect anomalies with an 85% accuracy rate, significantly reducing unauthorized access attempts. By implementing adaptive security measures and AI-driven intrusion detection, organizations can enhance their defenses against these evolving threats