Overly broad permissions can turn one compromised account into a much larger security problem. Learn how to reduce unnecessary access, review privileges, and apply least privilege across modern Linux systems. Review Linux Privileges×

Ettercap: An Effective LAN Tool for Packet Sniffing and Monitoring

Mar 10, 2006 •

Benjamin D. Thomas

1 min read

Topics Covered

networking packet capture open source tool sniffer LAN analysis

There are very few open source tools I’ve yet to see that are more useful then Ettercap. What is Ettercap, you may ask? I’ll tell you. Ettercap is a Ethernet/LAN Sniffer. It allows you to sniff packets on a LAN network, but that’s not the kicker. Ettercap can sniff packets on a switched network.

There are two major devices used to connect computers together. A Hub, and a Switch. A hub is a dumb device. It takes the data it receives in one port and simply sends it out all the other ports on the unit, regardless of the destination. Thus, sniffing traffic on a hub is relatively easy- all you have to do is “listen

The link for this article located at SailingCrusade.com is no longer available.