A MAC address is a means of identifying a device on the local network. It is an address that has many names. As well as being referred to as a MAC address, it is also referred to as a physical address, a hardware address, or a burnt-in address (BIA). These three variations refer to the fact that the MAC address is on the physical network card, or burnt into the network card.
A MAC address is represented as a 48-bit hexadecimal number. Hexadecimal is referred to as a base-16 numbering system. How hexadecimal works is beyond the scope of this book, but it is important that you are able to identify a MAC address. The following screenshot shows the output of the ipconfig /all command and shows the MAC address (listed as a physical ...
