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Showing posts from May 20, 2011

Sniffing

Sniffing is another technique to use internally. A sniffer or packet capture utility is able to capture any traffic  traveling  along the network segment to which it is connected. We normally set up sniffers throughout the organization to capture network traffic, hoping to identify valuable information such as user IDs and passwords. We use sniffing to passively capture data  being sent across the internal network. Laptops are usually the ideal platform since they are portable and easy to conceal. The system does not even need an IP address since it passively captures the traffic. The sniffing machine copies the data without modifying its contents and is difficult to detect even with sophisticated  intrusion detection software . There are programs, such as AntiSniff, that have some success in detecting sniffers. Switched Ethernet environments reduce the risk of packet capture. Since the sniffer is able to capture traffic only on its same network segment, a sniffer in a switched environ