If the hacker’s tablet is connected while your laptop is off, this isn’t disruptive.Ī hacker is on your network, which is never good, but things can get worse.

Just to keep the example simple, the hacker is using a tablet. Let’s say the hacker is spoofing your laptop. If a hacker is spoofing the address of one of your devices, things get weird and complicated for the network. The whole purpose of MAC addresses is to distinguish devices on a network and prevent confusion. Can the MAC Address Help a Hacker Disrupt a Network? The hacker can get on your network with impunity, and that can come with more consequences that will be discussed later. With MAC address spoofing, even this method of security is tricked. If the device’s name isn’t on the list, it can’t get on the network. The router acts like a bouncer at a club. This is an extra layer of security that will not let a new device join the Wi-Fi network unless the MAC address is specifically added to the router’s approved list. This is an advanced and effective way to get past Wi-Fi security.Ī lot of networks can use something called MAC filtering. When this happens, the router will allow the hacker’s device to get on the network because it has already given permission to the MAC address they are spoofing. With this technique, they can make your router think that their device is one of your devices. If the hacker is able to obtain the MAC address for any device on the network, they can use something called MAC address spoofing.

One of the key identifiers that the router will use is the unique MAC address for each device. So, when you connect a bunch of devices to the Wi-Fi, the router needs to be able to distinguish each device to route traffic correctly. Moreover, the MAC address for each device is truly unique in the world. That means every phone, computer, tablet, and more has a MAC address for the hardware that allows them to connect to your Wi-Fi. This is a serial number that is encoded into every networking device when the device is manufactured. Routers and networking equipment use several things to identify devices on a network, and one of those things is the MAC address.

5.2 #2 Collect Data How Can a MAC Address Be Used Against Your Wi-Fi Security?

Mac address