ARP spoofing and poisoning
TRAFFIC TRICKS
Any user on a LAN can sniff and manipulate local traffic. ARP spoofing and poisoning techniques give an attacker an easy way in.
Curiousity, revenge, industrial espionage are all reasons why insiders attack systems on their own network. Statistics show that 70 to 80 percent of all attacks originate on the internal network [1]. Admins have a hard time preventing these internal attacks because protecting the internal network is a lot more difficult than protecting against external attack. One of the most formidable forms of internal attack is known as ARP spoofing. ARP spoofing puts an attacker in a position to sniff and manipulate local traffic. So-called man-in-the-middle attacks are easy to perform, and thanks to sophisticated software, even attackers with little knowledge of networking stand a good chance of succeeding. How ARP Works The ARP protocol was published in November 1982 by David C. Plummer as RFC 826 [2]. As IT security was not an important factor back in 1982, the aim was simply to provide functionality. ARP maps IP addresses to MAC addresses. If client C needs to send a packet to server S, it needs to know the MAC address of S if both machines are on the same subnet. Even if S resides in a different network, C still needs a MAC address – in this case, the address of the next router that will forward the packet. The router takes care of everything else.
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Armbian 24.11 Released with Expanded Hardware Support
If you've been waiting for Armbian to support OrangePi 5 Max and Radxa ROCK 5B+, the wait is over.
-
SUSE Renames Several Products for Better Name Recognition
SUSE has been a very powerful player in the European market, but it knows it must branch out to gain serious traction. Will a name change do the trick?
-
ESET Discovers New Linux Malware
WolfsBane is an all-in-one malware that has hit the Linux operating system and includes a dropper, a launcher, and a backdoor.
-
New Linux Kernel Patch Allows Forcing a CPU Mitigation
Even when CPU mitigations can consume precious CPU cycles, it might not be a bad idea to allow users to enable them, even if your machine isn't vulnerable.
-
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.5 Released
Notify your friends, loved ones, and colleagues that the latest version of RHEL is available with plenty of enhancements.
-
Linux Sees Massive Performance Increase from a Single Line of Code
With one line of code, Intel was able to increase the performance of the Linux kernel by 4,000 percent.
-
Fedora KDE Approved as an Official Spin
If you prefer the Plasma desktop environment and the Fedora distribution, you're in luck because there's now an official spin that is listed on the same level as the Fedora Workstation edition.
-
New Steam Client Ups the Ante for Linux
The latest release from Steam has some pretty cool tricks up its sleeve.
-
Gnome OS Transitioning Toward a General-Purpose Distro
If you're looking for the perfectly vanilla take on the Gnome desktop, Gnome OS might be for you.
-
Fedora 41 Released with New Features
If you're a Fedora fan or just looking for a Linux distribution to help you migrate from Windows, Fedora 41 might be just the ticket.