Yes, by forging digital certificates, attackers can perform man-in-the-middle attacks (MITM) and thus eavesdrop on encrypted communications. The basic principle of a man-in-the-middle attack is that the attacker inserts himself between two parties (such as a user and a server) to steal or tamper with the communication data. In security protocols such as HTTPS, digital certificates are used to verify the identity of the server to ensure that the user is communicating with the right target. If an attacker is able to forge or obtain a valid digital certificate, they can impersonate the legitimate server. In this way, the victim does not know that their data is actually transmitted through the attacker's device during communication. Forging a digital certificate usually involves the following steps: 1. **Get the private key**: The attacker needs to obtain the private key of the target website, otherwise even if the certificate is forged, it will not be able to decrypt the encrypted data. 2. **Forge the certificate**: Using the target website's information, the attacker generates a fake digital certificate. 3. **Exploit the chain of trust**: The attacker needs to ensure that the forged certificate is trusted by the user's system. This may involve abusing certain root certificates or exploiting vulnerabilities in the system. 4. **Man-in-the-middle attack**: By acting as a middleman in the communication chain, the attacker can intercept and read the data. To defend against such attacks, modern browsers and operating systems usually maintain a trusted root certificate library and update them regularly. In addition, the Certificate Transparency mechanism also prevents the use of forged certificates to a certain extent. Users can also protect themselves through some security practices, such as verifying that the website's SSL/TLS certificate is valid, using a VPN, and keeping software and operating systems updated.