Hacking For Beginners – Manthan Desai
2010
9. Sniffers
Sniffers are almost as old as the Internet itself. They are one of the first tools that allowed system administrators to analyze their network and pinpoint where a problem is occurring. Unfortunately, crackers also run to spy on your network and steal various kinds of data. This paper discusses what a sniffer is, some of the more sniffers, and ways to protect your network against them. It also talks about a popular tool called Antisniff, which allows you to automatically detect sniffers running on your network.
What are Sniffers ?
In a non-switched network, Ethernet frames broadcast to all machines network, but only the computer that thepackets are destined for will respond. All of the other machines still see the packet, but if they are notthe intended receiver, they will disregard it. When a computer software and it’s network interface is inpromiscuous mode (where it listens for ALL traffic), then the computer ability to view all of the packets crossingthe network.
If you are an Internet history buff and have been wondering where the term sniffer came from. Sniffer was a product thatwas originally sold by Network General. It became the market leader and people starting referring to all networkanalyzers as “sniffers.” I guess these are the same people who gave the name Q -Tip to cotton swabs.
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