MAC Address or Media Access Control Address is a unique address or identifier assigned to network interfaces. MAC Addresses are mostly assigned by the manufacturers but can be manually changed later on and this is termed as MAC Spoofing. In this post we will discuss about some freeware that will let you change the MAC address of your network interface cards.
MAC Address Changer Tools
How to Spoof a MAC Address. In this Article: Spoofing A MAC Address In Windows Spoofing A MAC Address In Mac OS X Spoofing A MAC Address In Linux With Macchanger Community Q&A If you've landed on this page you probably know that there are valid reasons for wanting to change or spoof your address.
MAC addresses are especially useful when it comes to protecting your network from unwanted connections. All you have to do is to authorise only the MAC addresses that you wish to connect to the Internet or the network. We have see in detail, what is MAC Address and how to locate the MAC address of your network adaptors. Technitium, NoVirus Thanks & SMAC MAC are free MAC Address Changer Tools for Windows 10, that let you change the MAC Address or Media Access Control Address easily.
Technitium MAC Address Changer
Technitium MAC changer lets you instantly spoof or change MAC address of your network interface card. It provides you with enough information about the adapter and lets you edit settings to a greater extent. The UI is simple and easiest to operate, moreover it automatically gets and updates the vendor information by downloading latest vendor data (OUI) from IEEE.org.
If you do not know much about structures of MAC address then this tool can randomly provide you with a proper MAC address with complete vendor data. You can even make the new MAC address persistent and if you’ve accidently changed the MAC address or you simply want to revert back the changes then the program has capabilities to do so. Once you change a MAC address, the software automatically restarts network connection to apply changes.
Click here to download Technitium MAC Address Changer.
NoVirus Thanks MAC Address Changer
NoVirus Thanks MAC Address Changer is yet another simple MAC address changer. It displays all the available adapters and if you want you can even enable virtual network adapters, other than that it displays current MAC address and the manufacturer details.
To change the MAC address you simply need to hit the ‘Change MAC’ button and enter the new MAC address, again you can randomise it or simply choose one of your choice. Option for rolling back changes is also available. The program is quite easy to use and it doesn’t display any un-necessary confusing information, it is plain and quite straight forward.
Click here to download NoVirus Thanks MAC Address Changer.
SMAC MAC Address Changer
SMAC MAC address changer is available in five variants out of which the most basic one Evaluation Edition is free of cost. The evaluation edition boasts all the essential features but lacks a few advanced features that you can get in relatively higher variants. Other than spoofing MAC address, this utility can view IP Config.
Moreover it comes with all other basic feature like removing spoofed IP address and automatically restarting the network interface adapter and randomising the MAC address. The only limitation that can prevent you from using this tool is that it allows changing MAC address for only one adapter. If you want to change for more adapters, then you need to purchase the paid versions.
Click here to download SMAC MAC Address Changer.
If you have any more to add, please do so in the comments section.
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TCP/IP computer networks use both the IP addresses and MAC addresses of connected client devices. While the IP address changes over time, the MAC address of a network adapter always stays the same.
Mac Address Vendor Lookup
There are several reasons you might want to know the MAC address of a remote computer, and it's easy to do by using a command line utility such as Command Prompt in Windows.
A single device can possess multiple network interfaces and MAC addresses. A laptop computer with Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth connections, for example, has two or sometimes three MAC addresses associated with it, one for each physical network device.
Mac Address Assignment By Manufacturer
Why to Figure Out a MAC Address?
Reasons to track down the MAC address of a network device include:
- To set up MAC address filtering on a router to restrict local network access to only those devices whose addresses match a list of presets.
- To determine the device's manufacturer (first half of the address) and serial number (second half of the address) for service.
- To masquerade (spoof) the identity of a different device. MAC addressing spoofing can be used legitimately to register a home network gateway device with an internet provider. It can also have malicious intent, such as to defeat the MAC address filtering feature to break into the network.
Limitations of MAC Address Lookups
It isn't usually possible to look up MAC addresses for devices that are outside a person's physical reach. It often isn't possible to determine the MAC address of a computer from its IP address alone because these two addresses originate from different sources.
A computer's hardware configuration determines its MAC address, while the configuration of the network it is connected to determines its IP address.
However, if the computers are connected to the same TCP/IP network, you can determine the MAC address through a technology called ARP (Address Resolution Protocol), which is included with TCP/IP.
Using ARP, each local network interface tracks both the IP address and MAC address for each device it has recently communicated with. Most computers let you see this list of addresses that ARP has collected.
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How to Use ARP to Find a MAC Address
In Windows, Linux, and other operating systems, the command line utility arp shows local MAC address information stored in the ARP cache. However, it only works within the small group of computers on a local area network (LAN), not across the internet.
There's another method used to find the MAC address of the computer you're currently using, which involves using the ipconfig /all command in Windows.
ARP is intended to be used by system administrators and is not a typically useful way to track down computers and people on the internet.
Here is one example of how to find a MAC address via an IP address. Start by pinging the device you want the MAC to address for:
You will want to use a local address, so if your network is 10.0.1.x, then use that number to ping, as in the image below.
The ping command establishes a connection with the other device on the network and should show a result like this:
Use the following arp command to get a list that shows the MAC address of the device you just pinged:
The results may look something like this but probably with many other entries:
Find the device's IP address in the list; the MAC address is shown right next to it. In this example, the IP address is 192.168.86.45 and its MAC address is 98-90-96-B9-9D-61 (they're in bold here only for emphasis).
Check Your Router's Connection Data
To find the MAC address of the device connected to your router, assuming you can access the router's administrative control panel, log in and check for connected devices. Each active device, as well as recently connected devices, should list the local IP address as well as the MAC address.