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Chapter 26 Prevent ARP Spoofing 
Configuration 
26.1 Overview 
26.1.1 ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) 
Generally speaking, ARP (RFC-826) protocol is mainly responsible of mapping IP address to 
relevant 48-bit physical address, that is MAC address, for instance, IP address is 192.168.0.1, 
network card Mac address is 00-1F-CE-FD-1D-2B. What the whole mapping process is that a 
host computer send broadcast data packet involving IP address information of destination host 
computer, ARP request, and then the destination host computer send a data packet involving 
its IP address  and Mac address  to  the host, so two  host  computers can exchange data by 
MAC address. 
26.1.2 ARP Spoofing 
In terms of ARP Protocol design, to reduce redundant ARP data communication on networks, 
even though a host computer receives an ARP reply which is not requested by itself, it will also 
insert  an  entry  to  its  ARP  cache  table,  so  it  creates  a  possibility  of  “ARP  spoofing”.  If  the 
hacker wants to snoop the communication between two host computers in the same network 
(even if are connected by the switches), it sends an ARP reply packet to two hosts separately, 
and  make  them  misunderstand  MAC  address  of  the  other  side  as  the  hacker  host  MAC 
address. In this way, the direct communication is actually communicated indirectly among the 
hacker host computer. The hackers not only obtain communication information they need, but 
also only need to modify some information in data packet and forward successfully. In this sniff 
way, the hacker host computer doesn’t need to configure intermix mode of network card, that 
is  because  the  data packet  between  two  communication  sides  are  sent  to  hacker  host 
computer on physical layer, which works as a relay. 
26.1.3 How to prevent void ARP Spoofing 
There are many sniff, monitor and attack behaviors based on ARP protocol in networks, and 
most of attack behaviors are based on ARP spoofing, so it is very important to prevent ARP 
spoofing. ARP spoofing accesses normal network environment by  counterfeiting legal  IP 
address firstly, and sends a great deal of counterfeited ARP application packets to switches, 
after switches learn these packets, they will cover previously corrected IP, mapping of MAC 
address, and then some corrected IP, MAC address mapping are modified to correspondence 
relationship configured by attack packets so that the switch makes mistake on transfer packets, 










