HTTPS Stripping

Definitions

1. HTTPS Stripping is an attack technique in which an adversary forces a victim onto HTTP by interfering with secure upgrade or redirect behavior. Defenders analyze it to understand prerequisites, affected trust boundaries, and likely telemetry, then reduce risk with layered controls such as validation, hardening, rate limits, segmentation, and high-quality logging for investigation and response.

   In plain English: HTTPS Stripping is a way attackers abuse systems or trust relationships, and defenders counter it with better design, validation, monitoring, and layered controls.

   Example: "During the assessment, the team simulated HTTPS Stripping against a staging service, confirmed the weakness with logs and telemetry, and then added tighter validation, safer defaults, and monitoring so the same technique would trigger an alert in production."

Related Terms

• Authentication
• OTP
• CAPTCHA Bypass
• Cookie Poisoning
• HTTP Parameter Pollution
• HTTP Request Smuggling
• HTTP Response Splitting
• Open Redirect