If I come into knowledge of your MAC address, I could connect to the Wi-Fi network disguising as your network card, therefore gaining access to the Internet. The hotel has a Wi-Fi hotspot, to which both you and I have access additionally, you bought an Internet pass, which enables you to connect to the Internet through the hotspot. The only situation I can think of is something on the lines of It's extremely unlikely that this could cause any annoyance to you, let alone pose a security risk. a Wi-Fi router) that's pretty much all of it. If knew your MAC, I could disguise my network card as yours when dealing with a gateway (e.g. In short, there are some theoretical hazards, but in practice, anyone in a situation to exploit them has other ways to get your MAC address. In theory, someone could use this information to make a targeted attack against a security hole in your card's network driver, but I've never heard of it happening in practice. The first digits of the MAC address identify the manufacturer of your device.

This isn't as useful as it sounds, though: in order to actually use the password, they need to be within radio range of your AP, and in that case, they can simply sniff the MAC address off the air. Someone could use the address you posted to associate the device they've been tracking with an actual person, but if someone's going to the effort to track the movements of a wireless device, they probably already know who owns it.Ĭertain wireless routers set their default password based on the MAC address. Unless you take steps to change it regularly, your MAC address uniquely identifies your device. The address is (and needs to be) visible to everyone on the network segment, but because of how network routing works, is not normally visible to anyone else. A MAC address is a number used to uniquely identify your device on the local network segment.

Changing mac address on a mac