In this short tutorial, I will teach you how to change your computers MAC address in order to remain anonymous while pen testing a network.

DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for any illegal use of this technique.

NOTE: I am not using Kali Linux for my pen testing rig. I am using Ubuntu 22 and have built it out with all of the tools that I require to do my pen testing. This technique should work on newer Debian based distributions.

Why change the MAC Address

• To maintain anonymity while performing network penetration testing.
• To impersonate other devices on the network
• Bypassing filters

How to change the MAC Address

1. First, use ifconfig to list all interfaces on the machine.
2. Find the interface you wish to choose the MAC address of.
   • note the MAC address and interface name
3. In order to proceed with changing the MAC of your chosen interface, you must disable it first before changing it’s MAC address.
   • ifconfig INTERFACE-NAME down
4. Now we can change the hardware address, or ether address
   • ifconfig INTERFACE-NAME hw ether 00:00:00:00:00:00
   • NOTE: you can use any address but it must start with 00
5. Now we must re-enable the interface for it to work
   • ifconfig INTERFACE-NAME up
   • NOTE: The MAC Address will only remain until the computer is restarted. Once it is restarted it will revert back to the original hardware address.