Man-in-the-middle attack considered sexist

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.

In the view of the recent developments, cybersecurity specialist have re-considered the dangers of the MITM. The primary danger is now related to the implied gender of the attacker and the assumption that "those who do not identify themselves as 'men' are not capable of attacking computer communication systems".

Robert Ellypt and Alison Hashings, researchers in the field of classical cryptography, voice a different concern: a destructive assumption that only those who identify themselves as "men" are evil enough to be the attacker.

Regardless, the majority of journals are now reprinting the publications to replace "man-in-the-middle" with "person-in-the-middle".