What Is a MAC Spoofing Attack and How Can You Prevent It?
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Every day, new cyberattacks and breaches pop up on our news feeds. Cyberattackers are not only targeting big businesses and corporate organizations, but also individuals like you and me. MAC spoofing is one of the numerous attacks hackers use to exploit unsuspecting victims. It is your responsibility to prevent that from happening.
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What Is a MAC Address?
To fully understand MAC address spoofing, it is essential that you know what a MAC address is. Many people are familiar with the term “IP address”, but the MAC address seems to be its lesser-known counterpart. MAC stands forMedia Access Control.
A MAC addressis a 12-digit hexadecimal identifier unique to every electronic device and can be used to identify it on a network. Every device’s unique MAC address is assigned by the manufacturer. There are two types of MAC addresses: static and dynamic MAC addresses.
Mac addresses typically look like this:3C:64:91:88:D9:E3or3c-64-91-88-d9-e3.
What Is a MAC Spoofing Attack?
In simple terms, to spoof your MAC address means to change it. Although you cannot change the physical address on your device, there are applications that can make this possible on a network. MAC spoofing has its advantages, and can be used to gain access to networks that are limited to certain MAC addresses,to hide the identity of the original device, or to avoid being tracked or traced.
But MAC spoofing can be used for malicious purposes too. An attacker can mimic your MAC address and redirect data sent to your device to another and access your data.
A MAC spoofing attack is when a hacker changes the MAC address of their device to match the MAC address of another on a network in order to gain unauthorized access or launch aMan-in-the-Middle attack. It can be used to bypass network security measures that are based on the MAC address, such as MAC filtering, and can also be used to hide the identity of the attacker’s device.
How Does MAC Spoofing Work?
Think of MAC spoofing like this. You live on 13, Macklemore Street. Suppose an attacker who originally lives on 4, Macklemore Street tries to carry out a spoofing attack on you. He cannot change his address in the city records, but he can conveniently change the address number on his door to yours temporarily. This way, when you are supposed to receive mail from the post office, the attacker gets your mail instead of you.
That’s the same way MAC spoofing works. If your device’s MAC address is “11:AA:33:BB:55:CC” and the attacker’s MAC address is “22:BB:33:DD:44:FF” and the attacker wants to gain access to network resources restricted to your device, they can change their device’s MAC address to “11:AA:33:BB:55:CC” and impersonate your device. The network will then treat the attacker’s device as if it were yours, granting it the same access and privileges.
To perform MAC Spoofing, the attacker needs to first find the MAC address of the target device that they want to impersonate. They can do this by scanning the network for eligible MAC addresses.
Once the attacker has the target’s MAC address, they can change the MAC address of their device to match the target’s MAC address. This can be done in the device’s network settings, where the MAC address can be manually entered or changed.
Because the attacker’s device has the same MAC address as the target device, the network will treat it as if it were the target device. It will allow the attacker to access resources that are restricted to the target device, and the network will not be able to distinguish between the two devices.
A MAC spoofing attack can lead to other attacks including:
How to Prevent MAC Spoofing
Fortunately, you could go someway to prevent a MAC spoofing attack.
Encrypting network trafficcan prevent an attacker from being able to read and modify the data being transmitted on the network, making it more difficult for them to perform a MAC spoofing attack. Also, the use of encryption ensures that in the event of an attack, the information intercepted by the attacker is kept private.
Network administrators can configure Access Control Lists (ACLs) only to allow specific MAC addresses to access network resources too. This will prevent an attacker from being able to impersonate a device with a different MAC address. Similarly, segmenting the network into smaller subnets can help prevent these attacks by limiting the scope to a smaller area.
It’s important you pay attention to port security too. Port security can be configured on network switches to only allow specific MAC addresses to access the network through a specific port. This can prevent an attacker from being able to connect to the network and perform a MAC spoofing attack.
Dynamic ARP Inspection (DAI) is a security feature that can validate ARP (i.e. Address Resolution Protocol) requests and responses on a network. ARP is used to map an IP address to a MAC address, and DAI can prevent attackers from spoofing ARP responses.
Improve Your Organization’s' Security Posture
The security posture of your organization is its ability to prevent and react to cyberattacks. To prevent attacks like MAC spoofing attacks, it is important you take the necessary precautionary measure and carry out security best practices. These include keeping your devices and services up-to-date, ensuring effective data privacy, and using antiviruses and firewalls.
Learn the importance of security posture and the various steps you need to take to improve it for your business.
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