If I come into knowledge of your MAC address, I could connect to the Wi-Fi network disguising as your network card, therefore gaining access to the Internet.

However, it sometimes include the MAC address of my laptop, router, or both.

Please refer to similar question with excellent answers: security.stackexchange.coma6745052933.

Its true that nefarious use is nearly impossible, but when it comes to security, your enemy should know as little as possible about you.

MAC addresses are already quite predictable, easily sniffable, and any form of authentication dependent on them is inherently weak and shouldnt be relied upon.

They really dont make it to the outside world and thus cannot be used to connect back to you, locate you, or otherwise cause you any direct harm.

However, when its not inconvenient, I usually try to redact any irrelevant information when asking for help or sharing anything.

That only works if youre connected and using the network at the time the attacker is attempting to grab the MAC address.

If youre not connected to the network, then the attacker must acquire the MAC address through other means.

Perhaps I should revise it to say that most situations in which an attacker can meaningfully use your MAC address are situations in which your MAC address is clearly visible when in use.

Learning someones MAC address might be valuable to an attacker if some particular combination of spacetimeusage constraints would prevent them from learning it from your normal use.

The address is (and needs to be) visible to everyone on the network segment, but because of how network routing works, is not normally visible to anyone else.

Someone could use the address you posted to associate the device theyve been tracking with an actual person, but if someones going to the effort to track the movements of a wireless device, they probably already know who owns it.

In theory, someone could use this information to make a targeted attack against a security hole in your cards network driver, but Ive never heard of it happening in practice.

Most try to make sure you can only get your own location, but anyone can drive around and scan for the right mac address.

Also he learned that output of function contains MAC address.

After making this discovery about 2am he went to sleep and in some reason looked on this site again on morning.

For big surprise this time MAC was IBMs.

He sent mail to webmasterxxxxx with question Hey, what you did with Dell server and as he later found, caused quite a big panic inside company.

It came out that Dell server failed at night and was replaced with first handy computer.

At minimum this MAC leak caused some amount of lost work hours for employees.

Its extremely unlikely that this could cause any annoyance to you, let alone pose a security risk.

The only situation I can think of is something on the lines of.

The hotel has a Wi-Fi hotspot, to which both you and I have access; additionally, you bought an Internet pass, which enables you to connect to the Internet through the hotspot.

App To Show Mac Address For Ap