eSecurity Planet: Software & Internet Security Trends, Virus Alerts

November 22, 2009

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sniffer

Last modified: Thursday, July 29, 2004

A program and/or device that monitors data traveling over a network. Sniffers can be used both for legitimate network management functions and for stealing information off a network. Unauthorized sniffers can be extremely dangerous to a network's security because they are virtually impossible to detect and can be inserted almost anywhere. This makes them a favorite weapon in the hacker's arsenal.

On TCP/IP networks, where they sniff packets, they're often called packet sniffers.

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