Cybersecurity basics - Why change the MAC address on your PC and how to do it with Python
A MAC address is a hardware identification number that uniquely identifies each device on a network. The MAC address is manufactured into every network card, such as an Ethernet card or Wi-Fi card, and therefore cannot be changed as such. However, you can spoof the MAC address making it appear different online using a few simple tricks.
There are many reasons why you would want to change your MAC address, some legitimate others not so. Your ISP uses MAC address to identify or authenticate your Internet connection. So, in case your network card goes boom, the new card you replace it with will have different MAC address and so the Internet won’t work. So, changing the MAC address to old network adapter is the quickest fix instead of telling your ISP to register your new MAC address which may take lot of time.
Another example is if you have an ISP that allows only a certain number of computers to connect to the internet from your home. If you have more computers that need to connect, you can spoof the MAC address of an authorized computer and connect from a different computer.