What does packet sniffing involve?

Packet sniffing involves inspecting information packets that are traveling across networks. This process allows individuals or tools to capture and analyze the data being transmitted over a network. Packet sniffing is commonly used for network troubleshooting, monitoring network performance, and diagnosing issues. It can also be used for security purposes to analyze traffic for unauthorized access or to detect malicious activities.

In packet sniffing, software or hardware is utilized to intercept packets as they travel between devices, enabling the analysis of both the headers and payloads of these packets. This can provide valuable insights into network protocols, performance metrics, or even sensitive information, depending on what is being transmitted.

The other choices relate to different aspects of data handling and cybersecurity. Compressing data files pertains to data storage and transmission efficiency; encrypting data packets provides security to protect the contents from unauthorized access; and creating packets refers to the process of structuring data for transmission, but none of these focuses on the act of monitoring and analyzing existing network traffic like packet sniffing does.