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

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