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Spoofing is an active security attack in which one machine on the network masquerades as a
different machine. As an active attack, it disrupts the normal flow of data and may involve
injecting data into the communications link between other machines. This masquerade aims to
fool other machines on the network into accepting the impostor as an original, either to lure
the other machines into sending it data or to allow it to alter data. The meaning of “spoof”
here is not “a lighthearted parody,” but rather “a deception intended to trick one into accepting
as genuine something that is actually false.” Such deception can have grave consequences
because notions of trust are central to many networking systems. Sniffing may seem innocuous
(depending on just how sensitive and confidential you consider the information on your
network), some network security attacks use sniffing as a prelude to spoofing. Sniffing gathers
sufficient information to make the deception believable.