dsniff

dsniff is a collection of network auditing and intrusion tools developed by Dug Song. First released in the late 1990s, it is designed to aid security professionals in testing network defenses by capturing sensitive information from unencrypted network traffic and demonstrating the risks of insecure configurations. The suite includes programs such as arpspoof, dnsspoof, filesnarf, mailsnarf, urlsnarf, driftnet, and macof. Arpspoof performs ARP spoofing to position the attacker as a man-in-the-middle; dnsspoof enables DNS spoofing; driftnet extracts images from network streams; and the snarfing tools log or recover data from various protocols (files, email, URLs). The collection relies on packet sniffing and ARP manipulation, often in combination with a promiscuous network interface, to monitor traffic on a local segment or compromised switch.

Usage: It is intended for authorized security testing and education; using dsniff on networks without permission is illegal and unethical. Tools can reveal credentials and other sensitive information when traffic is not encrypted, highlighting the importance of encryption and proper network segmentation.

Distribution and licensing: dsniff is open-source software released under a BSD-style license and distributed as a package in many Unix-like systems. It has historically been part of security-focused toolkits and remains cited in discussions of network auditing techniques.