rcblevins
asked on
Duplicate Mac Address
Hello,
We have had our network running with about 30 computers bought 5 years ago. Anyway, everything has been fine until today. We have two computers grabbing the same IP address from DHCP because they both have the same Mac address. The Mac address on both computers also is odd. It starts with 40 and the other 28 omputers bought at the same time start with 00. We have had to replace some hard drives and even mother boards over the years, but nothing in the past several months. I am really concerned that we have a hacker or virus running around, so any help/answers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
We have had our network running with about 30 computers bought 5 years ago. Anyway, everything has been fine until today. We have two computers grabbing the same IP address from DHCP because they both have the same Mac address. The Mac address on both computers also is odd. It starts with 40 and the other 28 omputers bought at the same time start with 00. We have had to replace some hard drives and even mother boards over the years, but nothing in the past several months. I am really concerned that we have a hacker or virus running around, so any help/answers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Ernie Beek
There are possibilities to manually put in a mac address in the network drivers. Perhaps somebody has been experimanting with that?
Hardware should not have the same MAC addresses on the NIC. IT should be really easy to find the dupes since your switch would complain about flapping between 2 ports.
I would guess that there may be a virtual machine that was cloned running on 2 workstations. But that should be very evident.
I would guess that there may be a virtual machine that was cloned running on 2 workstations. But that should be very evident.
mac spoofing can be done if the user is intelligent enough.
If you have the first six characters of the mac address you could try to figure out what it is: http://www.coffer.com/mac_find/
I would try to see if you can pin point the location of both computers then check the actual MAC address. Once done verify the actual MAC addresses. If one doesn't match then I would scan for hacking utilities. Malwarebytes or CCcleaner should be able to find them. There are several utilities that can spoof MAC addresses.
I would also check to make sure none of these machines are virtual. If so you might need to create another NIC and disable the current one.
I would also check to make sure none of these machines are virtual. If so you might need to create another NIC and disable the current one.
Depeding on the equipment you have, the images you are running, mitigating MAC spoof is a fairly simple process and can be addressed with DHCP Snooping: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DHCP_snooping
As already mentioned, get down to the root cause to investigate to determine if the issue was related to experimentation, accidental, or malacious. If you switches are managed switches, you should be able to view the MAC/CAM table of the switches and locate the MAC to a specific switchport on the switch.
What type of switch equipment do you have connected to the network?
If the switches are not managed, then your only ooption is to investigate by visiting each computer and checking the properties of the card or TCP/IP network settings (ipconfig /all, etc).
Billy
As already mentioned, get down to the root cause to investigate to determine if the issue was related to experimentation, accidental, or malacious. If you switches are managed switches, you should be able to view the MAC/CAM table of the switches and locate the MAC to a specific switchport on the switch.
What type of switch equipment do you have connected to the network?
If the switches are not managed, then your only ooption is to investigate by visiting each computer and checking the properties of the card or TCP/IP network settings (ipconfig /all, etc).
Billy
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This question has been classified as abandoned and is being closed as part of the Cleanup Program. See my comment at the end of the question for more details.