Question

Two hosts on the same Ethernet subnet use ARP to resolve each other's IP address to a MAC address. Which statement best explains how ARP spoofing (ARP cache poisoning) exploits a design flaw in the protocol?

Q: Answer-Two hosts on the same Ethernet subnet use ARP to resolve each other's IP address to a MAC address. W...

ARP was designed as a stateless, unauthenticated protocol any host on the local segment can send an ARP reply even unsolicited, i.e., a gratuitous ARP claiming a particular IP maps to its MAC address, and receiving hosts update their ARP cache without any way to verify the claim. Attackers exploit this trust to redirect traffic intended for another host or the gateway through their own machine, enabling interception or man-in-the-middle attacks.

A ARP encrypts IP-to-MAC bindings using a shared secret, so spoofing requires first breaking that encryption

B ARP requires a valid digital signature on every reply, so spoofing is only possible after stealing a trusted certificate

C ARP has no built-in authentication mechanism, so an attacker can broadcast unsolicited replies with forged IP-to-MAC bindings, which hosts accept and cache without verifying the sender

D ARP spoofing succeeds only because switches flood every ARP reply to all ports regardless of the destination MAC address

E ARP tables are rebuilt directly from DNS records every few seconds, so spoofing works by first compromising the DNS server

Practice Next

Two hosts on the same Ethernet subnet use ARP to resolve each other's IP address to a MAC address. Which statement best explains how ARP spoofing (ARP cache poisoning) exploits a design flaw in the protocol?

Detailed Solution

More IT Operating System Questions

Hey! Ask a query

Please Register/Login

RBI Grade B 2026 Phase 1 Memory Based Paper