Deploying MAC Lockdown

When deploying MAC Lockdown, it is crucial to consider its use in your network topology to ensure security. If using techniques such as meshing or Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) to speed up network performance by providing multiple paths for devices, using MAC Lockdown either will not work or may defeat the purpose of having multiple data paths.

Using MAC Lockdown to prevent a malicious user from hijacking an approved MAC address to steal data traffic sent to that address. The MAC lockdown feature (static‐mac) allows administrators to configure the authorized set of clients on a given port.

MAC Lockdown helps prevent hijacking by ensuring that all traffic to a specific MAC address goes only to the correct port on a switch, which must be connected to the real device bearing that MAC address.

However, incorrectly deploying MAC Lockdown in a network that uses multiple path technology, Spanning Tree or mesh networks can cause errors.

Let’s examine a good use of MAC Lockdown within a network to ensure security first.