Hub and Switch Issues

While less-common than a few years ago, the shared media technology of hubs made them susceptible to sniffing attacks. All an intruder needed was access to any port in the collision domain and they could monitor all traffic. Just changing to switches reduced the threat because the only traffic visible on the port is traffic directed to the attached host or broadcasts.

Many switches support port monitoring or port spanning, which allows traffic from ports designated for capture to the port designated as the monitor port. The sniffer is attached to this port. Care should be taken to prevent port monitoring.

cp5 limit