Book Image

Python Penetration Testing Essentials

By : Mohit
Book Image

Python Penetration Testing Essentials

By: Mohit

Overview of this book

Table of Contents (14 chapters)
Python Penetration Testing Essentials
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Introducing a network sniffer


Sniffing is a process of monitoring and capturing all data packets that pass through a given network using software (an application) or a hardware device. Sniffing is usually done by a network administrator. However, an attacker might use a sniffer to capture data, and this data, at times, might contain sensitive information such as a username and password. Network admins use a switch SPAN port. Switch sends one copy of the traffic to the SPAN port. The admin uses this SPAN port to analyze the traffic. If you are a hacker, you must have used the Wireshark tool. Sniffing can only be done within a subnet. In this chapter, we will learn about sniffing using Python. However, before this, we need to know that there are two sniffing methods. They are as follows:

  • Passive sniffing

  • Active sniffing

Passive sniffing

Passive sniffing refers to sniffing from a hub-based network. By placing a packet sniffer on a network in the promiscuous mode, a hacker can capture the packets...