Media Access Control (MAC) Address
Note:_ The following tutorial works on any Linux Distributions, but you will need the root access to execute the system commands necessary in order to change the MAC Address successfully._
What is MAC Address?
To learn how to change the MAC Address, it is essential to learn about what a MAC Address is. We all use various electronic gadgets such as smartphones, desktops, laptops, tablets, and many more to browse the internet, for entertainment, among other tasks. Each of these electronic gadgets has its own MAC Address. MAC stands for Media Access Control Address. Every device needs a MAC Address to be uniquely identified by others on the network. For instance, when you watch a video on Youtube, you send a request for the video via your device, and this request is transmitted through your default gateway (usually through a router for a private home network). The router then sends this request to the World Wide Web and receives a response. Now, the World Wide Web (which is public) does not know who you are because your device has a private IP Address that is only recognized by your router, so the response received by the router is then given to you because the router knows your MAC Address associated with the private IP Address of your device.
MAC Address is a 48-bits hardware address that is hardcoded on the Network Interface Card (NIC) at the time of manufacturing. MAC Address is also known as the Physical Address of a device. MAC Addresses are used to transmit packets within the network.
For example, 00:1A:3F:F1:4C:C6 is a MAC Address. The first three octets (00:1A:3F) of the address identifies the manufacturer and is known as **OUI (Organizational Unique Identifier). **The last three octets are Network Interface Controller Specific.
Read more about NIC here.
Why do we need to change the MAC Address?
There are several reasons why you would want to change the MAC Address of your device. Let’s look at them one by one:
- Increase Anonymity: When on a public network, you might want to change the MAC Address to stay anonymous, if you don’t then there are chances that the network you are on might log your MAC Address and thus leaving behind a trail.
- Impersonate other devices: When you want to carry out an attack (for testing purposes), changing the MAC Address can be useful to impersonate any legitimate device.
- Bypassing filters: If a MAC Address is blacklisted to use the network, and to overcome this is to change the MAC Address and fool the filters.
#python #kali-linux #cybersecurity #linux #python3