MAC Flooding - Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards covering MAC flooding concepts, definitions, and mitigation techniques discussed in the lesson.

MAC flooding

An attack that overflows a switch's MAC address table, causing the switch to broadcast frames to all ports and potentially degrade security and performance.

MAC address table

The switch's mapping of MAC addresses to switch ports used to forward frames efficiently.

MAC address

A unique hardware identifier assigned to a network interface used for addressing on a local network.

Promiscuous mode

A network interface mode in which the device captures all network traffic, not just frames addressed to it.

Fail-safe mode

A switch state reached when the MAC address table is full, causing it to flood traffic like a hub.

Broadcast traffic

Frames sent to all devices on the network segment.

Data snooping

Unauthorized interception of network data by listening to traffic on a flooded switch.

Denial of Service (DoS)

Disruption of network services caused by overwhelming the network with traffic during a MAC flooding attack.

MAC-based access control (MAC filtering)

Security that allows or denies network access based on device MAC addresses.

Port security

A switch feature that limits the number of MAC addresses learned on a port to prevent floods.

VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network)

A technique to segment network traffic into separate broadcast domains to limit attack impact.

Anomaly-based IDS

An intrusion detection system that flags unusual patterns, such as spikes in MAC address entries or broadcast traffic.

Network monitoring tools

Tools that alert administrators to unusual traffic patterns and metric changes.

MAC flood attack method

Technique using tools to generate many random MAC addresses and rapidly send frames to overflow the switch.

Port security limit on MAC addresses per port

Configuration that restricts how many MAC addresses a switch port will learn to prevent flooding.

MAC-based access control bypass

Situation where a flooded switch cannot enforce MAC allow/deny lists, permitting unauthorized devices to connect.