

Well, for pentesting experts, of course, there are reasons to change the MAC address: for example, to pretend to be another user, and take advantage of its open access to the magical world of the Internet, or to increase anonymity.

There are also problems with customized filtering by MAC on the router. And in case of incorrect settings, you may encounter an Internet access problem running through the Intercepting Portal.

And starting with NetworkManager 1.4.0 (a popular program for managing network connections on Linux), an automatic MAC-address spoofing is now present. The hotel will provide you with a username and password for accessing the Internet via Wi-Fi – this ensures that only hotel customers can use Wi-Fi services.ĭue to the features of the Intercepting Portal, user identification is based on MAC addresses. For example, at the airport you may need to confirm your phone number via SMS to access the free Wi-Fi network. You can most often encounter examples of Intercepting Portals in public places that provide Internet access services via Wi-Fi to an indefinite circle of people, but who want to identify the user and / or allow access only to persons with credentials. This is a way to force the user to comply with certain conditions for providing Internet access. A few words about the Intercepting Portal. Based on MAC addresses, user identification can be performed when connected via the Intercepting Portal. But there is a more important reason (than paranoia) to learn about MAC addresses and about methods from substitution, or prohibiting changes in your system. In short, the replacement of the MAC address is needed so that it is not possible to track and identify the device by the MAC address. Moreover, the MAC address (also called a hardware, physical address) does not change when the operating system changes. And since this network device is part of your computer, this allows you to uniquely identify your computer. So, since the MAC address must be unique, it allows you to uniquely identify the network device.
