Change or Spoof A MAC Address in Windows or OS X

Change or Spoof a MAC Address in Windows or OS X
2/21/16, 6:40 PM
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Every NIC (Network Interface Card) has a unique MAC address (Media Access Control). This
applies to all types of network cards, including Ethernet cards and WiFi cards. The MAC
Address is a six-byte number or 12-digit hexadecimal number that is used to uniquely
identify a host on a network.
An example of a MAC address is 1F-2E-3D-4C-5B-6A and it falls into the Layer 2 networking
protocol of the OSI model. In todays networks, ARP, or Address Resolution Protocol converts
a MAC address to a Layer 3 protocol address, such as an IP address. A MAC address can also
be called a Physical Address. Read my post on how to find your MAC address if you dont
http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/how-to-change-mac-address/
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All MAC addresses are hard-coded into a network card and can never be changed. However,
you can change or spoof the MAC address in the operating system itself using a few simple
tricks.
So why would you want to change your MAC address? Well there are many reasons for this,
mostly related to bypassing some kind of MAC address filter set on a modem, router or
firewall. Changing the MAC Address can help you bypass certain network restrictions by
emulating an unrestricted MAC Address or by spoofing a MAC address that is already
authorized.
For example, a WiFi network may allow only authorized computers to connect to the network
and filters out computers based on the MAC address. If you can sniff out a legitimate MAC
address, you can then spoof your MAC address and gain access to the WiFi network.
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Another example is if you have an ISP that allows only a certain number of computers to
connect to the Internet from your home. If you have more computers that need to connect,
you can spoof the MAC address of an authorized computer and connect from a different
computer.
Change Windows MAC Address

You can change the MAC address for the network card in Windows pretty easily following the
steps below.
Step 1: Click on Start, then Control Panel, then Network Connections, and right-click on the
network connection you want to change the MAC address for and select Properties. It will
normally either be Local Area Connection or Wireless Network Connection.
If you are using Windows Vista, Windows 7 or higher, you have to go to Control Panel, then
Network and Internet, then Network and Sharing Center, and then click on Manage
Network Connections or Change adapter settings.
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Then you can right-click on the adapter and choose Properties.

Step 2: On the General or Networking tab, click the Configure button.
Step 3: Now click on the Advanced tab and click on the Locally Administered
Address property or the Network Address property.
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By default, the Not Present value is selected. Go ahead and click on the Value radio button
and enter in a new MAC address. The MAC address is a combination of 6 pairs of numbers
and characters, i.e. 40-A2-D9-82-9F-F2. You should enter the MAC address without the
dashes.
You can go to the command prompt and type in IPCONFIG /ALL to check that the MAC
address has been changed. Go ahead and restart the computer in order for the changes to
take effect.
This is the simplest way to change your MAC address in Windows. You can also do so via the
registry, but its much more technical and probably not required by most people.
Change OS X MAC Address

Changing the MAC address on OS X is definitely not as easy as it is on Windows. Firstly, you
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have to use Terminal (similar to command prompt in Windows) to actually change the MAC
address.
Secondly, you need to manually figure out the technical name of the adapter before you can
change the settings. Ill explain everything below step by step, but it gets a bit complicated at
times.
To start, lets find out the current MAC address for your Mac. You can do this in one of two
ways: via System Preferences or via Terminal. Open System Preferences, click on Network
and then click on the Advanced button. Make sure to select the appropriate interface first
(WiFi, Ethernet, etc) in the listbox on the left.
Click on the Hardware tab and you will see the first line is MAC Address. I thought you could
simply choose Manually from the Configure dropdown, but that doesnt allow you to edit the
MAC address.
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In Terminal, you can get the MAC address by typing in the following command:
ifconfig en0 | grep ether
This will give you the MAC address for the en0 interface. Depending on how many interfaces
you have on your computer, you might need to run this command several times adding 1 to
the number each time. For example, I ran the following commands below until I reached an
interface that didnt exist.
Now you can simply compare the MAC addresses listed here with the one you saw via System
Preferences. In my case, my WiFi MAC address of f8:1e:df:d8:9d:8a matches with en1, so that
is the interface I have to use for the next commands.
Before we change the MAC address, you can use a useful command in Terminal to generate a
random MAC address if you need one.
openssl rand -hex 6 | sed s/$..$/\1:/g; s/.$//
Now that you have a new MAC address, you can change the current one using the following
command below. Replace XX with the actual MAC address you want to use.
sudo ifconfig en0 ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
In order to do this, you need to be logged in as an Administrator or you have to enable the
root account in OS X. By default, root is disabled and its better to leave it disabled if you can.
Just login as an admin and you should be able to run the command just fine. It will ask you for
your password, though, before changing the MAC address.
Also, the address wont change if you are still connected to a WiFi network. You need to first
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disconnect from any networks and then run the command. Surprisingly, disconnecting from a
wireless network in OS X is not intuitive at all. You have to press and hold the Option key and
then click on the WiFi icon to see the disconnect option.
So here is a rundown of all the commands I ran in order to get the current MAC address,
generate a random one, update the MAC address and then verify to make sure it had actually
changed.
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As I mentioned earlier, this is definitely not as straightforward as the process is on Windows,

but you should be able to do it if you simply copy and paste the commands above. If you have
any questions, feel free to post a comment. Enjoy!
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April 2nd, 2015 by Aseem Kishore File in: Computer Tips

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