What is the main risk associated with session hijacking?

The primary risk linked to session hijacking is unauthorized user access to active sessions. Session hijacking occurs when an attacker takes over a user's active session, which can happen through various methods such as stealing session cookies or exploiting vulnerabilities in the application that manages sessions. Once an attacker gains control of a session, they can perform any actions that the legitimate user can, often without any additional authentication. This can lead to severe security breaches, as sensitive information may be accessed, modified, or even deleted without the user's consent or knowledge.

Other options relate to concerns that might arise in different contexts but do not capture the core issue with session hijacking as effectively as the risk of unauthorized access does. For example, increased latency and reduced network performance are performance-related issues, while data integrity loss refers more to the corruption or unauthorized alteration of data rather than the unauthorized access aspect of session hijacking. Thus, the focus on unauthorized access encapsulates the most significant risk associated with this attack vector.