Changing MAC Address of a Wireless Adapter

MAC address stands for Media Access Control address. It's a permanent and a unique address assigned to network interfaces by device manufacturers. It is used within the network to identify devices and transfer data between them.

In the world, no 2 devices have the same MAC address and this address will be permanent for a specific device even if you unplug it from your PC, connect it to another PC and so on, the MAC address of that particular device remains the same throughout.

Each packet of data that is sent within the network contains a source MAC and a destination MAC. Hence, the data packets flow from the device with the source MAC Address to the device having the destination MAC address.

So, why should you change the MAC address of your network adapter whenever you use it?

1. To increases anonymity
2. To bypass filters to connect to a specific network
3. To spoof other devices

Therefore, to change the MAC Address of a wireless network adapter, follow the commands given below in the respective order in the terminal:

1. ifconfig

It lists all the network interfaces that are connected with your PC. lo is the default interface created by Linux and wlan0 or mon0 (whatever it maybe in your case, it's wlan0 in my case) is the wireless adapter connected to your PC. The MAC Address of that device will be shown with 'ether' (Checkout the video attached with this article for a step by step process to change the MAC address of a wireless network adapter)

2. ifconfig wlan0 down

This command instructs the machine to turn down or disable the adapter labelled 'wlan0' from the list of network interfaces connected to the computer.

3. ifconfig wlan0 hw ether 00:11:22:33:44:55

This command instructs the machine to change the wireless hardware's (wlan0) MAC address from it's original value to 00:11:22:33:44:55.

4. ifconfig wlan0 up

It enables or turns up the adapter labelled 'wlan0' from the list of network interfaces connected to the computer.

5.ifconfig

Run this command once again to check if the MAC address has been successfully changed or not .

NOTE : The MAC Address of the adapter will revert back to it's original value once you restart your computer

Checkout the full video to do the aforementioned stuff here:

PS : This is my Youtube channel :P