What is the difference between passive attack and active attack?

[saloniraletta]

The major difference between active and passive attacks is that in active attacks the attacker intercepts the connection and modifies the information. Whereas, in a passive attack, the attacker intercepts the transit information with the intention of reading and analyzing the information not for altering it.Feb 2, 2018

[manoharparakh]

Active Attacks

Involves some modification of data stream or creation of false stream.
Masquerade, Replay and Dos are the examples
Easy to Detect.
Difficult to prevent active attacks.
Affects the System.

Passive Attacks

Eavesdropping / Monitoring of data transmission.
Release of message contents and traffic analysis.
Difficult to Detect
Emphasis on prevention rather than detection
Does not affect the system.