Changing Mac Address

What is a mac address?

A mac address is a unique series of numbers and letter which will make your internet connecting device unique. Because there are not two with the same mac address.

So why change the mac address?

Now it is pretty obvious if you do not change the mac address you will be traceable. Because no one else has the same number. So it is the same thing as telling someone who you are. If you are hacking you want to be anonymous and this is one step in the right direction. But that is just part of the reason. The main function or at least the number one reason for changing is actually to be able to access a wifi connection or stop someone from using a network. I will soon write more about who that works and how to connect to any wifi network.

So how do you change the mac address?

It is pretty easy so just follow the steps and print the same in the terminal on your kali.

Start by typing "ifconfig" as you can see in the image. "ether" is the mac address. You can sometimes have more than one mac address to choose between. That is if you have more than one device that can connect to the internet (router and then internet). But if you want to change the mac address on both you have to do the steps two times. But you will have to change the name, which I will mention further down.

$ ifconfig eth0 down

$ ifconfig eth0 hw ether 00:11:22:33:44:55

$ ifconfig eth0 up

So that's it. If you want to see if it worked type "ifconfig" again and it should be changed.

Let's break down the three commands:

The first row just calls for the ifconfig command and says to disconnect eth0. This means if your device is called something else you will have to change the name to that instead. The name is on the left side before all the information, as shown in the image above.

Next tells ifconfig to change eth0:s hardware settings for the class called ether (which is the name if you have an ethernet connection). So after the command comes the number you want to change the mac address to. Keep the mac address to this format to be able to use it.

The last line just connects eth0 again. This means that until you have typed the last line you will not have any internet connection.

KEEP IN MIND if you change the mac address it will change back to the original if you reboot the computer. So you will need to change it every time you have to use it.