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Need to eavesdrop a network? Try Microsoft's new free tool.

danwarne   on 26 September 2006 - 05:56 · 5 comments & 5601 views

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Need to sniff a network? Find out what’s going on? Want to discover passwords your software is sending in clear-text... or see someone else's?

Microsoft’s soon-to-be-released free Network Monitor 3.0 can do it. Worryingly, unlike utilities like Ethereal, it's also extremely easy-to-use.

Nobody's criticising Microsoft for making a cool, easy-to-use network tool, but the fact is any operator of a large LAN should be afraid ... unencrypted network traffic just got a whole lot easier to tap.

News source: APC Magazine

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#1 aniv on 26 Sep 2006 - 06:07
awesome, wtg Microsoft. Would be a great tool for noob sysadmins who cant use Ethereal lol
#2 Pilgrim03 on 26 Sep 2006 - 06:16
Ethereal has actually been renamed to Wireshark
#3 billyea on 26 Sep 2006 - 06:24
any admin who isn't encrypting their data deserves to be hacked
#4 quintesse on 26 Sep 2006 - 07:52
WTF? Ethereal not easy to use? Only complete morons would not know how to use it! It's not as if MS made a button "sniff passwords" so if you know enough about protocols to be able to sniff passwords (which isn't much) you can sure as hell figure out ethereal.

They seem very similar anyway, so maybe NM3 has some new features that make it even easier to use (although the linked article says "[NM3] is now on par with other software packet sniffers" but it was already ridiculously easy with existing tools, so no need to get your panties in a bunch about supposed waves of 13-year olds who will now start tapping because MS made it so easy for them.
#5 twistedddx on 26 Sep 2006 - 08:07
So this article is saying security thru obscurity is somehow secure?

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