RE: Wireless security & MAC Adress spoofing

["Burton M. Strauss III" <Burton () FelisCatus org>]

Yup ... the MAC addresses are a critical and unalterable part of the basic
Ethernet frame (lower level than even TCP/IP).  It's how devices determine
that a packet is addressed to them.

So any sniffer type application - e.g. Ethereal - can see them just fine,
regardless of higher layer encryption.

-----Burton


> -----Original Message-----
> From: VI [mailto:vi () vizo com]
> Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 4:10 AM
> To: security-basics () securityfocus com
> Subject: Wireless security & MAC Adress spoofing
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> How does anybody that want to spoof a MAC address to connect to a wireless
> AP know the right MAC's in the real life?
>
> Are the MAC numbers send along in Cleartext?
> Is sniffing the wireless network enough to get hold of the connecting MAC
> addresses?
>
> Thanks for answers.