CEH Practice Question: Malware, Social Engineering and Network Attacks
During a penetration test, you run the tool 'macof' against a switch. After a few seconds, the switch starts flooding frames out all ports. Which attack have you successfully executed, and what is the primary goal of this technique?
⚠ Common exam trap
The common trap is confusing MAC flooding with ARP poisoning; MAC flooding overloads the switch's CAM table, while ARP poisons the host's ARP cache.
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
✓
MAC flooding; to cause a switch to fail-open and act like a hub for sniffing
The 'macof' tool is specifically designed to perform MAC flooding attacks by generating frames with random source MAC addresses. This overwhelms the switch's Content Addressable Memory (CAM) table, causing it to fail-open and flood all incoming frames out every port, effectively making it behave like a hub. This allows the attacker to sniff network traffic that would normally be isolated to specific switch ports.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
MAC flooding; to cause a switch to fail-open and act like a hub for sniffing
Why this is correct
macof floods with random MACs to exhaust CAM table, enabling sniffing.
- ✗
VLAN hopping; to gain access to a different VLAN
Why it's wrong here
VLAN hopping uses double tagging or switch spoofing, not MAC flooding.
- ✗
STP manipulation; to create a loop and cause a DoS
Why it's wrong here
STP attacks target Spanning Tree Protocol, not MAC addresses.
- ✗
ARP poisoning; to intercept traffic between two hosts
Why it's wrong here
ARP poisoning spoofs ARP replies, not MAC flooding.
Quick reference
Access Control Model Comparison
| Model | Acronym | Who Controls Access? | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discretionary Access Control | DAC | Resource owner | Small teams, file shares |
| Mandatory Access Control | MAC | System / security labels | Classified govt / military |
| Role-Based Access Control | RBAC | Administrator (via roles) | Enterprise environments |
| Attribute-Based Access Control | ABAC | Policy engine (user + resource attributes) | Fine-grained, dynamic policies |
| Rule-Based Access Control | RuBAC | System rules / ACLs | Firewall rules, network ACLs |
Go deeper
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JA
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.