Client Server socket security

Question

Assuming we have a server S and a few Clients (C) and whenever a client update a server, an internal database on the server is updated and replicated to the other clients. This is all done using sockets in an intranet environment. I believe that an attacker can fairly easily sniff this plain text traffic. My colleagues believe I am overly paranoid because we are behind a firewall.

Am I being overly paranoid? Do you know of any exploit (link please) that took advantage of a situation such as this and what ca be done differently. Clients were rewritten in Java but server is still using C++. Any thing in code can protect against an attack?

Answer 1

Inside your company's firewall, you're fairly safe from direct hack attacks from the outside. However, statistics that I won't trouble to dig out claim that most of the damage to a business' data is done from the INside. Most of that is simple accident, but there are various reasons for employees to be disgruntled and not found out; and if your data is sensitive they could hurt your company this way.

There are also boatloads of laws about how to handle personal ID data. If the data you're processing is of that sort, treating it carelessly within your company could also open your company up to litigation.

The solution is to use SSL connections. You want to use a pre-packaged library for this. You provide private/public keys for both ends and keep the private keys well hidden with the usual file access privileges, and the problem of sniffing is mostly taken care of.