


This filter should reveal the DHCP traffic. Open the pcap in Wireshark and filter on bootp as shown in Figure 1. This pcap is for an internal IP address at 1. The first pcap for this tutorial, host-and-user-ID-pcap-01.pcap, is available here. NBNS traffic is generated primarily by computers running Microsoft Windows or Apple hosts running MacOS. DHCP traffic can help identify hosts for almost any type of computer connected to your network. How do we find such host information using Wireshark? We filter on two types of activity: DHCP or NBNS. If you have access to full packet capture of your network traffic, a pcap retrieved on an internal IP address should reveal an associated MAC address and hostname. In most cases, alerts for suspicious activity are based on IP addresses.

So, the honest answer is: Yes running Wireshark could pose a risk if you are processing capture data (pcap file or captured on the wire) with traffic that triggers a buffer overflow in one of the dissectors. Nobody will guarantee that there are no security related bugs in Wireshark, especially not for the dissectors. Wireshark is a piece of software where a few hundred people contributed code to. Well, actually there is a theoretical risk. Do you know if this would work on Skype as well?Īlso, a bit off topic: does using and having Wireshark installed on a Windows PC pose any kind of security risk?
