What Are Network Packet Sniffers?
Network packet sniffers are used to monitor information sent over a network. These may be hardware or software, depending on the type of sniffer and its overall purpose. Network packet sniffers collect packets out of a network data stream, decode them and read their information. Sniffers are used for a wide range of legitimate and illicit functions, from troubleshooting network problems to stealing passwords and sensitive information. The technology that eventually became network packet sniffers grew up with network computing. In the early days of networking, information was constantly being lost or corrupted in transit. Early network hardware and software contained many problems, both in their coding and physical construction, which compounded the errors. Sniffing programs could read data before and after network junction points to locate areas where data was becoming corrupt. This helped move the technology forward until network transmissions became much closer to being error-free.
