Preventing ARP cache poisoning attacks: A proof of concept using OpenWrt

The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is used by computers to map network addresses (IP) to physical addresses (MAC). The protocol has proved to work well under regular circumstances, but it was not designed to cope with malicious hosts. By performing ARP cache poisoning or ARP spoofing attacks, an intruder can impersonate another host (man-in-the-middle attack) and gain access to sensitive information. Several schemes to mitigate, detect and prevent these attacks have been proposed, but each has its limitations. In this paper we propose a solution to the problem that can be implemented in SOHOs using low-end networking equipment running the OpenWrt firmware. The solution proposed is effective and inexpensive and presents several advantages over other existing prevention methods.