CEH Practice Question: Malware, Social Engineering and Network Attacks
A penetration tester needs to perform ARP poisoning to intercept traffic between two hosts on the same subnet. Which tool would be the most appropriate choice for this task?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse passive sniffing tools like Wireshark or tcpdump with active attack tools, assuming that any tool that captures traffic can also perform ARP poisoning, but only dedicated MITM tools like Ettercap have the built-in ARP spoofing engine required for this task.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Ettercap
Ettercap is the most appropriate tool for ARP poisoning because it is specifically designed for man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks on a local area network (LAN). It automates ARP spoofing by sending forged ARP replies to both target hosts, poisoning their ARP caches so that traffic intended for the other host is redirected through the attacker's machine, enabling interception and modification of packets.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
tcpdump
Why it's wrong here
tcpdump is a command-line utility primarily used for network packet analysis and monitoring. It operates by capturing and displaying packets that traverse a network interface, allowing security professionals to inspect traffic passively. However, it lacks the functionality to actively craft and inject malicious ARP packets required to manipulate ARP caches for poisoning attacks, making it unsuitable for initiating such an attack.
- ✓
Ettercap
Why this is correct
Ettercap is a comprehensive suite designed specifically for man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks on local area networks, including robust ARP poisoning capabilities. It actively intercepts traffic by sending forged ARP replies to trick hosts into associating the attacker's MAC address with the gateway's IP, and vice-versa. This allows the penetration tester to transparently relay, inspect, and modify network traffic between the target and the gateway, fulfilling the requirement for ARP poisoning.
- ✗
Nmap
Why it's wrong here
Nmap, or Network Mapper, is a powerful open-source tool predominantly used for network discovery, security auditing, and port scanning. While it can identify active hosts and services on a network, its core functionality does not extend to actively performing ARP cache manipulation or injecting spoofed ARP packets for poisoning purposes. Nmap focuses on reconnaissance and vulnerability identification rather than active Layer 2 interception attacks.
- ✗
Wireshark
Why it's wrong here
Wireshark is a widely-used graphical user interface (GUI) network protocol analyzer that allows for deep inspection of network traffic. It functions as a passive listener, capturing and dissecting packets to provide detailed insights into communication flows and protocol anomalies. As a purely analytical tool, Wireshark is incapable of actively generating or injecting the malicious ARP packets necessary to perform an ARP poisoning attack, making it unsuitable for the task.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CEH practice question is part of Courseiva's free EC-Council certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CEH exam.