So, for devices that do not have an 802.1x supplicant, and thus does not support certificate-based authentication (or credentials based), it is easy to setup an isolated segment and significantly lower the risk of attack.Īs such, we’ll put our focus on examining wired environments, and how they’re vulnerable to the above adversaries. One caveat: most wifi environments contain managed devices. The hacker – a malicious person trying to attack your network and steal information, causing harm to your organizationĪnd here are the most common attack surfaces:.who physically visits your organization for a period of time The guest – a contractor, customer, patient, etc.The employee – a disgruntled current or former employee.
Spoofing network mac address mac#
Here are some of the most common adversaries when it comes to MAC spoofing: Without going into too much detail, NAC is one of the only systems that can help you prevent lateral movement, indirectly allowing you to identify breaches and directly helping you to prevent the compromise of your crown jewels. Let’s consider: is MAC spoofing a legitimate threat or an exaggerated, manageable flaw?īut before I try to analyze this risk, I want to point out the biggest advantage a NAC solution can give an organization to cope with modern cyber security threats: the ability to apply dynamic segmentation based on device type or identity. Now, let’s put aside the fact that network printers today can support certificate or credential-based authentication, and that certain products have remedies against such attempts even when the authentication is based on MAC. Usually, this involves spoofing the network printer or other vulnerable device. One of the network risks that is often presented to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of 802.1x solutions is the ease of bypassing modern network access control (NAC) by using MAC spoofing. When implementing any insurance policy, you need to start with estimating the level of risk, the probability of that risk, and the potential damage should that risk become a reality.