What type of attack involves flooding a switch's interface with Ethernet frames from fake hardware addresses?

The scenario described pertains to the process of overwhelming a switch's interface with Ethernet frames that originate from fake hardware addresses, which is characteristic of a MAC flooding attack. In this type of attack, the attacker sends a multitude of frames that contain false or nonexistent MAC addresses to the switch, which eventually leads the switch to exhaust its MAC address table. Once this table is filled, the switch enters a fail-open mode, broadcasting incoming frames to all connected devices rather than forwarding them through the learned MAC addresses. This can lead to a range of negative consequences, including network traffic interception and denial of service as legitimate traffic becomes indiscriminately broadcasted.

While ARP spoofing, packet injection, and SYN spoofing are significant and recognizable types of attacks within the realm of network security, they do not specifically describe the actions involved in flooding a switch's interface with fabricated MAC addresses. ARP spoofing deals with sending false ARP messages to associate an attacker's MAC address with the IP address of a legitimate device. Packet injection refers to inserting malicious packets into a network which could potentially exploit vulnerabilities, whereas SYN spoofing is linked to TCP connection establishment manipulations. Each of these techniques serves different purposes and targets distinct weaknesses within network infrastructures, highlighting the specificity of MAC flooding