Packet Sniffing, continued

• Packet sniffer - originally a trademark of Network Associates, denotes any hardware or software tool that can capture packets from the network, by setting a node's Ethernet card to report all packets to the system/application regardless of the packet's destination MAC address.

• Network analyzers - tools that monitor network traffic and devices with the goal of alerting the network manager of problems (too much traffic, failed responses from known devices, IP address allocation concerns).

• Protocol analyzers - tools that capture network packets, providing some level of formatting for those packets, allowing the user to analyze/visualize packets post-hoc.

• Automatic sifting of clear-text passwords and usernames from the network. Used by attackers to break into active accounts, and remote systems,
• Conversion of data to human readable format so that people can read the traffic,
• Fault analysis to discover problems in the network, such as why computer A can't talk to computer B,
• Network intrusion detection in order to discover attackers, and
• Network traffic logging, to create logs that attackers can't break into and erase.