What is mac address flooding Pc#
PC B receives the frame and sends a reply to PC A.
Picture 2 – Switch learns mac address from source MAC address in the layer 2 headers from frames – switch is populating his mac table This means that not only PC B receives the frame, PC C also receives the frame from host A to host B, but because the destination MAC address of that frame is host B, host C drops that frame. If the switch does not have the destination MAC in the MAC address table, the switch then copies the frame and sends it out every switch port like a broadcast. The switch receives the frames and looks up the destination MAC address in its MAC address table.
Picture 1 – Switch acts as hub with empty mac address tableĬomputer A sends traffic to computer B. If the MAC address does not exist, the switch acts like a hub and forwards the frame out every other port on the switch while learning the MAC for next time. In this case the switch forwards the frame to the MAC address port designated in the MAC address table. If the switch has already learned the MAC address of the computer connected to his particular port then an entry exists for the MAC address. When frames arrive on switch ports, the source MAC addresses are learned from Layer 2 packet header and recorded in the MAC address table. Cisco Catalyst switch models use a MAC address table for Layer 2 switching. When switch receives a frame, he looks in the MAC address table (sometimes called CAM table) for the destination MAC address. To understand the mechanism of a MAC address table overflow attack we must recall how does a switch work in the first place. MAC flooding attacks are sometimes called MAC address table overflow attacks. MAC address table in the switch has the MAC addresses available on a given physical port of a switch and the associated VLAN parameters for each. When all of a sudden you’re not able to send or receive an email from the person in the cubicle next to you, or the entire network becomes so slow that it comes to a complete crawl and the only solution I’ve seen was to shut down the server and to reboot it then login quickly and see what ports or how you can stop the flood of data.MAC address flooding attack is very common security attack. I have witnessed this first hand at my place of work and it is truly a scary thing to see. Would imagine this is something that a lot of network administrators would keep an eye out for and that there are measures and various means to avoid this from happening to a network that can not afford to have their connection slow or their data not getting where it needs to be. From managed switches to the protocols being handled differently by the resident OS on the device. There are multiple checks and balances that can avert this situation, to the point where it’s not as big a threat as it used to be.
March 4, I’m sure that in this current age of computers and technology there are ways to prevent this from happening. This approach makes it possible to designate a specific and single point of termination for data sent across the network. Each MAC address is associated with a physical port on the network switch. When functioning properly, the table will map each individual MAC address that is found on the network. The basics of MAC flooding begin with a corruption of the translation table that is part of the function of the network switch. MAC flooding inundates the network switch with data packets that disrupt the usual sender to recipient flow of data that is common with MAC addresses. The end result is that rather than data passing from a specific port or sender to a specific recipient, the data is blasted out across all ports. Essentially, MAC flooding inundates the network switch with data packets that disrupt the usual sender to recipient flow of data that is common with MAC addresses. MAC flooding is a method that can be used to impact the security protocols of different types of network switches.