Network Security: Packet Sniffing - Limitation and Hacks

A packet sniffer can only capture packet information within a given subnet or on a particular device's nic. An attacker can't place a packet sniffer on their network and capture network traffic from inside a corporate network. However, there are ways to hijack a system running on an internal network and make it packet sniff from a remote location. While there are a few dozen packet sniffers, some with specialized purposes, there is one that stands above the rest. From Wireshark's website. Wireshark is the world's foremost and widely used network protocol analyzer. It lets you see what's happening on your network at a microscopic level, and is the de facto, and also dejour standard, across many commercial and nonprofit enterprises, government agencies, and educational institutions. Wireshark development thrives, thanks to the volunteer contributions of networking experts around the globe, and is the continuation of a project started by Gerald Combs in 1998.