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What is MAC spoofing?
MAC spoofing is the process of changing the MAC (Media Access Control) address of a network interface on a device connected to a network. The MAC address is unique and is assigned to each network interface for sending and receiving data at the data link layer of the network segment. In other words, it ensures that each network is uniquely identifiable from the others. These addresses are 48-bit (6-byte) numbers usually written in hexadecimal format and divided into pairs using dashes or colon (e.g., 00:1A:2B:3C:4D:5E). When purchasing a network interface card (NIC), each NIC has its own MAC address incorporated by the manufacturers.
Today, thanks to software tools and techniques, this address can be altered. This alteration is known as MAC spoofing and can be done for many legitimate reasons, such as privacy issues, testing or troubleshooting within networks. This technology can also be used for malicious purposes; in fact, altering the MAC address allows the device to pretend to be someone else by assuming its MAC address instead. Systems on networks will think they are dealing with another device when they receive packets with that updated MAC address.
Before demonstrating the impact of MAC spoofing, we need to introduce two tools that will allow us to work at the network level. These tools are arp-scan and…
