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Webcast Care can help prevent ARP Poisoning attacks, which is a type of cyberattack that abuses weaknesses in the widely used Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) to disrupt, redirect, or spy on network traffic.
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Webcast Care can help prevent ARP Poisoning attacks, which is a type of cyberattack that abuses weaknesses in the widely used Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) to disrupt, redirect, or spy on network traffic.
What is ARP?
The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) exists to support the layered approach used since the earliest days of computer networking. The functions of each layer, from the electrical signals that travel across an Ethernet cable to the HTML code used to render a webpage, operate largely independently of one another. This is how we can use IPv4 – a network layer technology dating to the early 1980s – with newer technologies like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth: The lower physical and data link layers handle the specifics of transferring data over a specific medium like radio waves.
The purpose of ARP is to translate between addresses at the data link layer – known as MAC Addresses – and addresses at the network layer, which are typically IP addresses. It allows networked devices to “ask” what device is currently assigned a given IP address. Devices can also announce this mapping to the rest of the network without being prompted. For efficiency’s sake, devices will typically cache these responses and build a list of current MAC-to-IP mappings.
What is ARP Poisoning?
ARP Poisoning consists of abusing the weaknesses in ARP to corrupt the MAC-to-IP mappings of other devices on the network. Security was not a paramount concern when ARP was introduced in 1982, so the designers of the protocol never included authentication mechanisms to validate ARP messages. Any device on the network can answer an ARP request, whether the original message was intended for it or not. For example, if Computer A “asks” for the MAC address of Computer B, an attacker at Computer C can respond and Computer A would accept this response as authentic. This oversight has made a variety of attacks possible. By leveraging easily available tools, a threat actor can “poison” the ARP cache of other hosts on a local network, filling the ARP cache with inaccurate entries.
ARP Poisoning Attack Steps
The exact steps of an ARP Poisoning attack can vary, but generally consist of at least the following:
1. Attacker Selects a Victim Machine or Machines
The first step in planning and conducting an ARP Poisoning attack is selecting a Target. This can be a specific endpoint on the network, a group of endpoints, or a network device like a router. Routers are attractive targets because a successful ARP Poisoning Attack against a router can disrupt traffic for an entire subnet.
2. Attacker Launches Tools and Begins the Attack>
A wide variety of tools are easily available to anyone looking to carry out an ARP Poisoning attack. After launching the tool of his or her choice and configuring applicable settings, the attacker will begin the attack. They may immediately begin broadcasting ARP messages, or wait until a request is received.
3. Attacker Does Something with the Incorrectly Steered Traffic
Once the ARP cache on a victim machine or machines has been corrupted, the attacker will typically perform some type of action with the incorrectly steered traffic. They may inspect it, alter it, or cause it to be “blackholed” and never reach its intended destination. The exact action depends on the attacker’s motives.