Which technique involves connecting a rogue switch to manipulate STP to intercept traffic?

Which technique involves connecting a rogue switch to manipulate STP to intercept traffic?

• A. Switch Spoofing
• B. double tagging
• C. VLAN hopping
• D. Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) attack

Answer: (D)

Manipulating how Spanning Tree Protocol builds the network view is what allows intercepting traffic. STP decides a single root bridge and assigns port roles to create a loop-free path. If a rogue switch is added and starts sending BPDUs that pretend to be the root or otherwise skew the bids, the network may re-elect a different root and place ports in forwarding states along the attacker's link. When traffic is redirected through the attacker’s switch, it can be observed or tampered with. This targeted exploitation of STP topology is what the so-called STP attack describes. Other techniques focus on VLAN behavior or host-level impersonation rather than altering the STP topology to trap traffic, so they don’t directly achieve the same interception via STP manipulation.

Manipulating how Spanning Tree Protocol builds the network view is what allows intercepting traffic. STP decides a single root bridge and assigns port roles to create a loop-free path. If a rogue switch is added and starts sending BPDUs that pretend to be the root or otherwise skew the bids, the network may re-elect a different root and place ports in forwarding states along the attacker's link. When traffic is redirected through the attacker’s switch, it can be observed or tampered with. This targeted exploitation of STP topology is what the so-called STP attack describes.

Other techniques focus on VLAN behavior or host-level impersonation rather than altering the STP topology to trap traffic, so they don’t directly achieve the same interception via STP manipulation.