Analysis of ARP Spoofing Attacks and Their Impact on Local Network Security

The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is a foundational component of local area network communication, responsible for resolving IP addresses to MAC addresses within a subnet. Its stateless and unauthenticated design makes it susceptible to a class of attacks known as ARP spoofing, where a malicious actor transmits falsified ARP messages to corrupt the ARP caches of other devices on the same network segment. This paper presents a detailed analysis of ARP spoofing attacks, covering the protocol’s inherent weaknesses, the step-by-step mechanics of cache poisoning, and the tools commonly used by attackers. It further investigates the impact of these attacks on LAN and public Wi-Fi environments, addressing data interception, session hijacking, and network availability disruption. A review of current mitigation techniques including Dynamic ARP Inspection (DAI), static ARP entries, and network monitoring is provided, along with an assessment of their practical effectiveness. The paper also discusses emerging trends such as machine learning-based anomaly detection and Software-Defined Networking as future directions for defending local networks against ARP-based threats.