Bypassing the Limitations of Switches

Because of the way Ethernet switches operate, it is more difficult to gather useful information when sniffing on a switched network. Since most modern networks have been upgraded from hub to switches, it takes a little more effort to sniff on a switched network. One of the ways to do that is to trick the switch into sending the data to the hackers' computer using ARP poisoning.

How ARP Works

ARP allows the network to translate IP addresses into MAC addresses. When one host using TCP/IP on a LAN tries to contact another, it needs the MAC address or hardware address of the host it's trying to reach. It first looks in its ARP cache to see if it already has the MAC address; if it doesn't, it broadcasts an ARP request asking, "Who has the IP address I'm looking for?" If the host that has that IP address hears the ARP query, it responds with its own MAC address, and a conversation can begin using TCP/IP.

ARP poisoning is a technique that's used to attack an Ethernet network and that may let an attacker sniff data frames on a switched LAN or stop the traffic altogether. ARP poisoning utilizes ARP spoofing, where the purpose is to send fake, or spoofed, ARP messages to an Ethernet LAN. These frames contain false MAC addresses that confuse network devices such as network switches. As a result, frames intended for one machine can be mistakenly sent to another (allowing the packets to be sniffed) or to an unreachable host (a denial-of-service, or DoS, attack). ARP spoofing can also be used in a man-in-the-middle attack, in which all traffic is forwarded through a host by means of ARP spoofing and analyzed for passwords and other information.

ARP Spoofing and Poisoning Countermeasures

To prevent ARP spoofing, permanently add the MAC address of the gateway to the ARP cache on a system. You can do this on a Windows system by using the ARP -scommand at the command line and appending the gateway's IP and MAC addresses. Doing so prevents a hacker from overwriting the ARP cache to perform ARP spoofing on the system but can be difficult to manage in a large environment because of the number of systems. In an enterprise environment, port-based security can be enabled on a switch to allow only one MAC address per switch port.

In Exercise 1 you will use Wireshark to sniff traffic.

Exercise 1: Use Wireshark to Sniff Traffic

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1. Download and install the latest stable version of Wireshark from www.wireshark.org.
2. Click on the Capture menu and then select interfaces.
   
   
   
3. Click the Start button next to the interface that shows packets being sent and received. If you have multiple interfaces with packet activity, choose one of them—preferably the interface with the most activity.
4. Click on a packet to analyze that single packet. The detailed headers will be displayed beneath the packet capture screen.
5. Expand each header (IP, TCP) of a packet and identify the address information.

This exercise will provide much more network traffic if performed on a hub rather than a switch. A wireless network can be used, as a wireless LAN is a shared network segment similar to how a hub operates.

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Hacking Tools

Wireshark is a freeware sniffer that can capture packets from a wired or wireless LAN connection. The software was previously called Ethereal. Wireshark is a common and popular program because it is free, but it has some drawbacks. An untrained user may find it difficult to write filters in Wireshark to capture only certain types of traffic.

Snort is an intrusion detection system (IDS) that also has sniffer capabilities. It can be used to detect a variety of attacks and probes, such as buffer overflows, stealth port scans, Common Gateway Interface (CGI) attacks, Server Message Block (SMB) probes, and OS fingerprinting attempts.

WinDump is the Windows version of tcpdump, the command-line network analyzer for Unix. WinDump is fully compatible with tcpdump and can be used to watch, diagnose, and save to disk network traffic according to various rules.

EtherPeek is a great sniffer for wired networks with extensive filtering and TCP/IP conversation tracking capabilities. The latest version of EtherPeek has been renamed OmniPeek.

WinSniffer is an efficient password sniffer. It monitors incoming and outgoing network traffic and decodes FTP, POP3, HTTP, ICQ, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), telnet, Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), and Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) usernames and passwords.

Iris is an advanced data- and network-traffic analyzer that collects, stores, organizes, and reports all data traffic on a network. Unlike other network sniffers, Iris is able to reconstruct network traffic, such as graphics, documents, and emails including attachments.