Spoofing
MACSpoof allows you to change the MAC address of your network components in the Windows XP environment. You can store up to 20 additional MAC addresses in the program, and once changed MACSpoof will restart your device for immediate use. But before moving on with our spoofing mac address OS X trick, let’s see what does a MAC address look like. MAC address is the lower sub-layer of the data link layer in the Open System Interconnection (OSI) model. It is a six-byte number. MAC address is also often referred as the Physical Address. A possible MAC address can be 2F-4D-5B-6E-2A-9C.
Changing the MAC Address can help you bypass certain network restrictions by emulating an unrestricted MAC Address or by spoofing a MAC address that is already authorized. For example, a WiFi network may allow only authorized computers to connect to the network and filters out computers based on the MAC address. MAC Spoofing Attack. Well, the third way is a bit annoying because of the high risk of account suspension. Caller ID spoofing program from Windows PC. MAC spoofing bypasses access control measures, gives a hacker the identity of a valid user, fools authentication checks, and can hide a rogue device on a network. MadMACs: MAC Address Spoofing and Host Name Randomizing App for Windows 7 (Should work in Windows Vista and Windows 8 too) from Irongeek. Download Newest MadMACs. I wrote MadMACs awhile back, as a simple script to randomize my MAC address (and host name) in Windows on every boot. MACSpoof allows you to change the MAC address of your network components in the Windows XP environment. You can store up to 20 additional MAC addresses in the program, and once changed MACSpoof will restart your device for immediate use. MAC spoofing can be used maliciously to circumvent network controls. Many modern network adapters lacking this option in driver’s settings, but thanks to new Windows 10 options app – there.
Deception is about as old as humanity itself. For as long as there have been people, there have also been fraudsters trying to take advantage of other people’s inexperience, ignorance, and gullibility. Although their techniques are similar, the hoaxers of yesteryear have nothing on today’s hoaxers.
Nowadays, fraudsters are combining age-old deception methods with modern technology to create a brand new beast – spoofing. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines spoofing as the act of making good-natured fun of a particular subject, but there’s nothing fun about online spoofing.
Key takeaway: Spoofing is an act of impersonation. A hacker will pretend to be a person or company known to and trusted by the recipient. Spoofing is used to gain access to the sensitive data or use computational resources to carry out cyber attacks. Read on to learn about the main types of spoofing attacks.
What is Spoofing?
Spoofing is a fraudulent act in which communication from an unknown source is disguised as being from a source that is known to and trusted by the recipient. A spoofing attack occurs when a person (referred to as a spoofer) pretends to be someone else in order to trick their target into sharing their personal data or performing some action on behalf of the spoofer. The spoofer will often take time and make an effort to build trust with their target, thus ensuring that they will share their sensitive data more easily.
As a type of impersonation carried out via technological means, spoofing can take on many forms. In its most primitive form, spoofing refers to impersonation via telephone. For example, when a caller on the other end falsely introduces themselves as a representative of your bank and asks for your account or credit card info, you are a victim of phone spoofing. To make their fake calls seem more believable, spoofers have also started using software to fake caller IDs, an act known as phone number spoofing.
The most sophisticated forms of spoofing, however, are taking place online. In most cases, they involve the sending of fraudulent emails to unsuspecting targets, but may also include the spoofing of devices and addresses. Regardless of their type, most spoofing attacks are malicious. The attackers behind them usually aim to gain access to the victim’s personal data, distribute malware, access private networks, create botnets for the purpose of carrying out cyber attacks, or cause financial losses to the victim.
Spoofing isn’t illegal in itself, as you might sometimes need to fake your phone number, your IP address, or even your name to protect your identity and be able to access certain services that may otherwise be unavailable in your location. However, it is illegal to use spoofing to defraud someone and engage in criminal activity. Depending on the severity of their attack, spoofers may be fined and/or sentenced to prison. They may also have to compensate their victim for any losses suffered as a result of the attack.
What Types of Spoofing Exist
Cybercriminals employ a variety of methods and techniques to carry out spoofing attacks and steal their victims’ sensitive information. Some of the most common types of spoofing include the following:
- Email Spoofing
Email spoofing is the most prevalent form of online spoofing. Similar to phishing, spoofers send out emails to multiple addresses and use official logos and header images to falsely introduce themselves as representatives of banks, companies, and law enforcement agencies. The emails they send include links to malicious or otherwise fraudulent websites and attachments infected with malicious software.
Some spoofers may also use social engineering techniques to trick the victim into disclosing information voluntarily. They will often create fake banking or digital wallet websites and link to them in their emails. When an unsuspecting victim clicks on that link, they will be taken to the fake site where they will have to log in with their information, only to have that info sent to the spoofer behind the fake email.
- DNS Spoofing
Each computer and each website on the internet are assigned their own unique IP address. For websites, this address is different from the standard “www” internet address that you use to access them. When you type in a web address into your browser and hit enter, the Domain Name System (DNS) quickly finds the IP address that matches the domain name you entered and redirects you to it. Hackers have found ways to corrupt this system and redirect your traffic to malicious websites. This is called DNS spoofing.
Also known as DNS cache poisoning, this method is used by cybercriminals to introduce corrupt DNS data on the user’s end, thus preventing them from accessing the websites that they want to access. Instead, no matter what web address they type in, the user will be redirected to the IP addresses defined by the hacker, which most often hosts malicious software or fake forms that harvest the victim’s personal data.
- IP Spoofing
Mac Spoofing App Windows 7
As the name suggests, IP spoofing refers to the use of a fake IP address by the sender to either disguise their real identity or to carry out cyber attacks. The sender assumes an existing IP address that doesn’t belong to them in order to send out IP packets to networks they otherwise wouldn’t have access to. Since they’re coming from a trusted address, the security system on the recipient’s end will see the incoming packets as part of the normal activity and won’t be able to detect the threat until it’s too late.
Not all instances of IP spoofing are malicious. The virtual private network (VPN) technology is based on IP spoofing, but its main purpose is to protect the users’ identity, allow them to access content that is otherwise blocked due to internet censorship, and prevent cyber attacks while on a public Wi-Fi connection. Although some countries like China and Turkey have outlawed the use of VPN, it is legal in most countries of the world as long as it’s not used to engage in cybercriminal activities.
- DDoS Spoofing
DDoS spoofing is a subtype of IP spoofing used by hackers to carry out Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against computers, networks, and websites. The attackers use various techniques to scan the internet for computers with known vulnerabilities and use these flaws to install malicious software. This allows them to create botnets, armies of “robot” computers, all remotely controlled by the hacker.
Whenever they want, the hacker can activate all the computers in their botnet and use their combined resources to generate high levels of traffic to target websites and servers in order to disable them. Each of these computers has their own unique IP address. Considering that botnets can comprise a million or more computers with as many unique IPs, tracing the hacker’s actual IP address may prove impossible.
- ARP Spoofing
Every internet-connected device has its own Media Access Control (MAC) address that is linked to the device’s unique IP address via the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP). Cybercriminals can hack into their target’s local area network and send false ARP data. As a result, the hackers’ MAC address will become linked to the target’s IP address, thus giving them insight into their target’s incoming traffic.
Hackers opt for ARP spoofing to intercept sensitive data before it reaches the target computer. They may also modify parts of the data so that the recipient can’t see them, while some hackers will stop the data in-transit, thus preventing it from reaching the recipient. ARP spoofing attacks can only be carried out on local area networks use ARP. In addition, the hacker must first gain access to the local area network.
Examples of Spoofing Attacks
Some of the best-known examples of spoofing attacks include the following:
- In 2006, unknown hackers carried out a major DNS spoofing attack – the first of its kind – against three local banks in Florida. The attackers hacked the servers of the internet provider that hosted all three websites and rerouted traffic to fake login pages designed to harvest sensitive data from unsuspecting victims. This has allowed them to collect an undisclosed number of credit card numbers and PINs along with other personal information belonging to their owners.
- In June 2018, hackers carried out a two-day DDoS spoofing attack against the website of the American health insurance provider, Humana. During the incident that was said to have affected at least 500 people, the hackers have managed to steal complete medical records of Humana’s clients, including the details of their health claims, services received, and related expenses.
- In 2015, unidentified hackers have used DNS spoofing techniques to redirect traffic from the official website of Malaysia Airlines. The new homepage showed an image of a plane with the text “404 – Plane Not Found” imposed over it. Although no data was stolen or compromised during the attack, it blocked access to the website and flight status checks for a few hours.
How to Prevent a Spoofing Attack
While you can’t prevent others from trying to impersonate known contacts or IP addresses to gain access to your network and personal information, there are things that you can do to avoid becoming a victim of spoofers. As a rule, a combination of safe browsing habits and thebest antivirus softwareis the only surefire way to prevent hackers from taking control of your data and your computer.
Your sensitive information – including passwords, credit card info, and Social Security number – should only be shared via secure forms on encrypted websites that use HTTPS. If anyone sends you an email asking for this information, don’t respond to them. Check the sender address of any suspicious-looking email you receive before clicking on links or downloading attachments contained in it. If any of the websites you normally visit are acting differently, don’t click on any links or fill out any forms on them.
Hackers often use different spoofing techniques to install malware on your computer, which is why you need to use thebest antivirus softwareto protect your files. A good antivirus program will provide real-time protection against viruses, worms, Trojans, and all other types of malicious software. To ensure optimal security, some of these programs will alert you whenever you try to access a suspicious website.
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Spoofers can infect your computer with malware and use it to monitor your activity, access your files, and turn you into a bot.
Every NIC (Network Interface Card) has a unique MAC address (Media Access Control). This applies to all types of network cards, including Ethernet cards and WiFi cards. The MAC Address is a six-byte number or 12-digit hexadecimal number that is used to uniquely identify a host on a network.
An example of a MAC address is 1F-2E-3D-4C-5B-6A and it falls into the Layer 2 networking protocol of the OSI model. In today’s networks, ARP, or Address Resolution Protocol converts a MAC address to a Layer 3 protocol address, such as an IP address. A MAC address can also be called a Physical Address. Read my post on how to find your MAC address if you don’t know it.
All MAC addresses are hard-coded into a network card and can never be changed. However, you can change or spoof the MAC address in the operating system itself using a few simple tricks.
So why would you want to change your MAC address? Well there are many reasons for this, mostly related to bypassing some kind of MAC address filter set on a modem, router or firewall. Changing the MAC Address can help you bypass certain network restrictions by emulating an unrestricted MAC Address or by spoofing a MAC address that is already authorized.
For example, a WiFi network may allow only authorized computers to connect to the network and filters out computers based on the MAC address. If you can sniff out a legitimate MAC address, you can then spoof your MAC address and gain access to the WiFi network.
Another example is if you have an ISP that allows only a certain number of computers to connect to the Internet from your home. If you have more computers that need to connect, you can spoof the MAC address of an authorized computer and connect from a different computer.
Change Windows MAC Address
You can change the MAC address for the network card in Windows pretty easily following the steps below.
Step 1: Click on Start, then Control Panel, then Network Connections, and right-click on the network connection you want to change the MAC address for and select Properties. It will normally either be Local Area Connection or Wireless Network Connection.
If you are using Windows Vista, Windows 7 or higher, you have to go to Control Panel, then Network and Internet, then Network and Sharing Center, and then click on Manage Network Connections or Change adapter settings.
Then you can right-click on the adapter and choose Properties.
Step 2: On the General or Networking tab, click the Configure button.
Step 3: Now click on the Advanced tab and click on the Locally Administered Address property or the Network Address property.
By default, the Not Present value is selected. Go ahead and click on the Value radio button and enter in a new MAC address. The MAC address is a combination of 6 pairs of numbers and characters, i.e. 40-A2-D9-82-9F-F2. You should enter the MAC address without the dashes.
You can go to the command prompt and type in IPCONFIG /ALL to check that the MAC address has been changed. Go ahead and restart the computer in order for the changes to take effect.
This is the simplest way to change your MAC address in Windows. You can also do so via the registry, but it’s much more technical and probably not required by most people.
Change OS X MAC Address
Changing the MAC address on OS X is definitely not as easy as it is on Windows. Firstly, you have to use Terminal (similar to command prompt in Windows) to actually change the MAC address.
Secondly, you need to manually figure out the technical name of the adapter before you can change the settings. I’ll explain everything below step by step, but it gets a bit complicated at times.
To start, let’s find out the current MAC address for your Mac. You can do this in one of two ways: via System Preferences or via Terminal. Open System Preferences, click on Network and then click on the Advanced button. Make sure to select the appropriate interface first (WiFi, Ethernet, etc) in the listbox on the left.
Click on the Hardware tab and you will see the first line is MAC Address. I thought you could simply choose Manually from the Configure dropdown, but that doesn’t allow you to edit the MAC address.
In Terminal, you can get the MAC address by typing in the following command:
ifconfig en0 | grep ether
This will give you the MAC address for the en0 interface. Depending on how many interfaces you have on your computer, you might need to run this command several times adding 1 to the number each time. For example, I ran the following commands below until I reached an interface that didn’t exist.
Now you can simply compare the MAC addresses listed here with the one you saw via System Preferences. In my case, my WiFi MAC address of f8:1e:df:d8:9d:8a matches with en1, so that is the interface I have to use for the next commands.
Before we change the MAC address, you can use a useful command in Terminal to generate a random MAC address if you need one.
openssl rand -hex 6 | sed ‘s/(..)/1:/g; s/.$//’
Now that you have a new MAC address, you can change the current one using the following command below. Replace XX with the actual MAC address you want to use.
sudo ifconfig en0 ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
In order to do this, you need to be logged in as an Administrator or you have to enable the root account in OS X. By default, root is disabled and it’s better to leave it disabled if you can. Just login as an admin and you should be able to run the command just fine. It will ask you for your password, though, before changing the MAC address.
Also, the address won’t change if you are still connected to a WiFi network. You need to first disconnect from any networks and then run the command. Surprisingly, disconnecting from a wireless network in OS X is not intuitive at all. You have to press and hold the Option key and then click on the WiFi icon to see the disconnect option.
So here is a rundown of all the commands I ran in order to get the current MAC address, generate a random one, update the MAC address and then verify to make sure it had actually changed.
Mac Address Spoofer Windows 10
As I mentioned earlier, this is definitely not as straightforward as the process is on Windows, but you should be able to do it if you simply copy and paste the commands above. If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment. Enjoy!