CSEC610 Individual Assignment 1

Disclaimer/Caveat/Disclosure/Whateveryouwouldliketocallthis:

You are more than welcome to use my paper below as a reference. But, please be smart and do not simply copy and paste because your Prof. or TA will know. Justlike you, they have access to this website as well. So be nice and smart and don't set yourself up for a failure, at the very least you should rephrase/paraphrase/reword/Whateveryouprefertocallthis.Just a suggestion, but at the end of the day, it will be your decision. :)

Also, I have got at the very least 90% in each of my papers, but that DOES NOT guarantee that you will get the same. It depends almost exclusively on how yourprofessor looks at your response and how s/he grades. The ones that I got were awesome professors and my workand my points went across to them, hence the higher grade. So, basically what I am trying to say here is that if you score less than 90% while using my papers as reference or as a whole, don't curse me out, you just got a stricter professor. :)

(PS: I didnt add a Cover Page and Abstract to this paper when I submitted it to my professor for grading. Dont forget to add those or you will lose points)

In today's technology driven environment, an Information Technology

(IT) manager constantly fears for the known and unknown

vulnerabilities faced by its network. With access to multiple forms of

hardware and software devices, it is challenging for an IT manager to

keep his network secure. One of the biggest network vulnerability

comes from the wireless connections on a business, educational and/or

personal network.

Wireless networking is preferred by most of the users because of its

cost and ease of use. Wireless is cheaper to implement and is easy to

set up. On top of that, it also offers mobility to the user. A person

do not need to be chained to his or her desk thanks to the wireless

network. The work can be performed from anywhere in a building or a

campus. Wireless network is beneficial for a user, but is a nightmare

for an IT manager. No other computer hardware carries greater risk for

a network security than a wireless network card on a device that have

accessed different private and public networks.

Almost all of the businesses practice secure networking when it comes

to wireless connections. Typically there are multiple layers of secure

log-in processes, followed by the user authentication by the host

server on a network. The real threat comes from the off-business

wireless usage. A typical wireless user tends to connect his or her

wireless device (laptop, cell-phone and/or tablet) at any location

where he or she can find a wireless signal. May that be at work,

school or at a hotspot provided by the neighborhood Starbucks. The

number of worldwide commercial hotspots reached 143,700 in 2006, with

an estimated 675,000 additional access points shipped during the year

specifically for use in public hot spots. The growth in hotspots is

expected to continue because they are inexpensive and the public is

becoming accustomed to the mobility and ubiquitous Internet access

they provide. With the tendency of wireless users to connect to many

different public access points, the chance of picking up malicious

code increases. These threats are easily transferred to wired networks

to which those users may later connect, thus extending the

implications of user security to network security as well. (Chenoweth,

Minch & Tabor 2010)

Network security risk is becoming an increasingly important issue,

particularly as applications and uses of wireless network (WLANs) are

continuing to develop rapidly in line with the equally rapid

development of the 802.11 family of standards and amendments on which

the vast majority of wireless networks are based. WLANs enjoy high

awareness and acceptance in organizations as they are now fast, cheap

and easy to use compared with traditional wired networks. However

there is as yet a disturbingly low level of security for these

networks; in fact the very nature of wireless transmissions makes it

easy to attack them. Specifically, it is easier both to intercept

signals during transmission and to "spoof" fraudulent messages on a

wireless network compared to a wired network because the data

traveling across a wireless network is transmitted to anyone capable

of receiving within range of the signal. Security of information

possesses great importance to organizations which use wireless

networks. If these networks are left vulnerable, organizations can

suffer a whole range of consequences from the trivial and annoying to

a potentially shattering organizational blow. (Barrett & Dyce, 2006)

The wireless vulnerability that is causing the biggest threat to any

network, and feared by the IT Managers, is the Denial of Service

(DoS). An infected wireless device, once connected to a secure

network, can unleash DoS on any network. DoS was always a problem for

any network but in the past few years, DoS has become a major threat

to network, even worse than spam, viruses, worms, malware and

phishing. DoS attacks use a range of techniques and tricks to

manipulate 802.11 protocols, with an eye to making it difficult or

impossible for legitimate users to connect, or stay connected, to a

Wi-Fi access point. In some cases, this simply means users might be

unable to wirelessly update their Facebook page for awhile; in others,

blocking access to email or other corporate resources; and in others

blocking stock trades or other time-critical transactions that could

cost companies a lot of money. (Cox. 2011)

The 802.11 standard itself contains multiple vulnerability flaws.

Though the security features do provide protection to some extent,

they are not fully prone to attacks and can be hacked or manipulated

by the hackers. Following are the few known vulnerabilities of a

802.11 standard router:

SSID:

The SSID is used for identifying the network, not as a security

measure. Unfortunately, the use of a SSID is often mistaken as a

password protection. The SSID contained in the beacon frame is always

sent in plaintext, regardless of the deployment of the WEP option. Any

wireless client, malicious or not, can listen for this beacon to

obtain the SSID and bypass this low level access control. (Dhull &

Singh 2010)

MAC Address Access Control List (ACL):

Some 802.11 vendors offer a MAC Address ACL feature that provides

minimal access control by limiting access to only authorized wireless

cards. Unfortunately, the packets containing the MAC addresses are

sent in clear text and the entries on the ACL can be easily obtained

through traffic monitoring. An unauthorized user can spoof these MAC

addresses and try to gain access to the AP. Most of the time, the AP

has the factory configuration for the administrator username and

password. When the unauthorized user has accessed the AP, the

configuration of the AP can be changed. (Dhull & Singh 2010)

Shared Key Authentication Flaw:

The Shared Key authentication mechanism is used before an association

is allowed. During the challenge-response sequence, both the plaintext

challenge and the encrypted challenge are transmitted. This is

potential security vulnerability since it allows for discovery of the

key and the IV pair used for the authentication sequence. The 802.11

standard recommends avoiding using the same key and IV pair for the

next frame transmitted but there is no guarantee that implementations

follow this recommendation. For this reason, as noted earlier in this

document, using Open System Authentication along with WEP is generally

considered more secure as key-related information is not transmitted.

(Dhull & Singh 2010)

WEP Vulnerabilities:

The report focus on the minimal security offered by the WEP protocol,

in particular, the following weaknesses:

a. High probability of key re-use due to the short IV (On a busy

network, IV reuse occurs often enough that the hacker may obtain the

key in minutes to hours);

b. Weak message authentication due to the short key length used; and

c. Lack of a key management specification. (Dhull & Singh 2010)

WPA/WPA2 Vulnerabilities:

WPA and WPA2 have introduced measures designed to address the major

vulnerabilities of WEP, however a few new vulnerabilities were

introduced and some vulnerabilities remain, particularly in WPA

because of the requirement for backwards compatibility, and low

compute requirements. (Dhull & Singh 2010)

Key Management:

The distributed shared key is the weakest aspect of the system. By

using static shared keys, distributed among all the clients as

“passwords,” the number of users aware of these keys will grow as the

network expands. This creates the following problems:

a. Shared key among many people does not stay secret for long;

b. The manual distribution of shared key can be time consuming,

especially in a large environment with many users. Quite often, this

results in key not being changed as frequently as required; and

c. The frequency of IV re-uses increases as the network size expands,

which makes it more vulnerable to attack. (Dhull & Singh 2010)

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP):

Many 802.11 APs support management of the wireless device via SNMP.

Often, this feature permits someone to view system and configuration

information, and in some cases, allows the capability to update this

information. Access to this information is normally restricted by the

use of a community string, which is not a password, but simply an

identifier given to the SNMP network. Further, this string is usually

a well-known value, obtainable by a simple Internet search. (Dhull &

Singh 2010)

With all of the above mentioned flaws in a 802.11 standard, one might

ask, "How can an IT manager secure his wireless network from attacks

like DoS, viruses, warms, phishing and others?" That is a tough

question to answer. IT managers can launch multiple layers of

protection to their network, but as long as there is one wireless node

available, there will be a threat to their network. One cannot fully

protect any network or system. There are many ways to keep a network

safe, to an extent, but all it takes is one compromised wireless

device to bring down a state of the art secure network. As mentioned

above, wireless networking is beneficial for most of the businesses

because of its low cost and ease of use. Some businesses relay heavily

on wireless network because of their needs, for example any

educational institution, where a wireless network is helpful for both

the students and the faculty members.

There are five major security goals that need to be addressed in order

to maintain a reliable and secure ad-hoc network environment. They are

mainly:

• Confidentiality: Protection of any information from being exposed to

unintended devices. In ad-hoc networks this is more difficult to

achieve because intermediates nodes (that act as routers) receive the

packets for other recipients, so they can easily eavesdrop the

information being routed.

• Availability: Ensures that network services are provided as supposed

to be. In an ad-hoc network without protection of proper security

mechanisms, its service performance and availability can be easily

compromised. For example, signal jamming at the physical and media

access control layers can seriously interfere with communications or

even bring down the physical channels. A malicious or selfish node can

also disrupt routing services, which may result in network partition

• Authentication: Assurance that an entity of concern or the origin of

a communication is what it claims to be or from. Otherwise, an

attacker would impersonate a node, thus gaining unauthorized access to

resource and sensitive information and interfering with operation of

other nodes.

• Integrity: Message being transmitted is never altered.

• Non-repudiation: Ensures that sending and receiving devices will

never deny, sending or receiving, the message. (Sreedhar,

Madhusudhana-Verma, & Kasiviswanath, 2010)

Following steps can be taken by an IT manager to protect his network

from potential vulnerabilities:

On Organization/Business Level:

Improving Organizational Security Within the Existing Organizational

Culture:

The implications for businesses wanting to improve their system

security are that they need to take account of how aspects of

organizational culture may work against computer security as well as

for it. With respect to wireless network security, they need to be

aware of the anxieties, both internal and external, that are likely to

be associated with Wireless Network Vulnerability Assessments (WNVA).

Businesses have always needed to be mindful of how their activities

are perceived by both their external and internal "publics". The

difficulties of Enron, Shell, the Australian Wheat Board, James Hardie

and many other firms which have been accused of poor behavior, are due

in part to what people, insiders as well as outsiders, believed they

could do as well as what they actually did do. Living with this

situation requires frequent and credible communication with the

organization’s internal and external publics about why specific

security strategies are necessary. (Barrett & Dyce, 2006)

Improving Organizational Security by Changing Organizational Culture:

Tacit knowledge as embodied in organizational culture may be altered,

although this is typically difficult and time consuming. Various

approaches to changing organizational culture in the interests of

helping the organization adapt to other necessary change have been

examined by change theorists. These theorists all argue that important

changes should be embedded into the organization’s culture to be

successful. Introducing a new security protocol would be an apt

example of a change requiring this treatment. Embedding change into

culture is typically the last and most difficult part of a planned

change process, though often the most important if the change is to

remain. A major computer security breach or the threat of one may be

sufficient to establish a sense of critical urgency needed to convince

organizational members of the need to do things differently. This is

the first step in most theorists’ recommendations for successful

planned change. (Barrett & Dyce, 2006)

Embedding WNVAs into organizational culture could be helped by

incorporating them, and an appropriate framework for carrying them

out, into standard operating procedures. Change theorists endorse

telling organizational stories and developing rituals to transmit and

embed aspects of culture. Accordingly, developing and telling

organizational stories about security breaches detected and harm

avoided, preferably without damage to other employees’ privacy and

with appropriate rewards allocated, could over the long term change

users’ perceptions about the risks and rewards of WNVAs. (Barrett &

Dyce, 2006)

Such cultural change is unlikely to happen without problems. The

necessary cultural shifts may well threaten aspects of IT

professionals’ work identity, for example, since subcultures including

those of IT professionals have been shown to depend in part on their

special expertise which contributes to the power they can exercise in

organizations. This and other implications of the results of the

present study, for example in the areas of IT professional ethics,

computer security awareness education, and so on, requires further

research. . (Barrett & Dyce, 2006)

On Personal/Home Level:

As mentioned above, there are some built-in flaws in the 802.11

standard, but by enabling multiple security features on a wireless

router at the same time, the user can make his network safer than a

network with no security at all.

Change Default Administrator Passwords (and Usernames):

At the core of most Wi-Fi home networks is an access point or router.

To set up these pieces of equipment, manufacturers provide Web pages

that allow owners to enter their network address and account

information. These Web tools are protected with a login screen

(username and password) so that only the rightful owner can do this.

However, for any given piece of equipment, the logins provided are

simple and very well-known to hackers on the Internet. Change these

settings immediately.

Turn on (Compatible) WPA / WEP Encryption:

All Wi-Fi equipment supports some form of encryption. Encryption

technology scrambles messages sent over wireless networks so that they

cannot be easily read by humans. Several encryption technologies exist

for Wi-Fi today. Naturally you will want to pick the strongest form of

encryption that works with your wireless network. However, the way

these technologies work, all Wi-Fi devices on your network must share

the identical encryption settings. Therefore you may need to find a

"lowest common denominator" setting.

Change the Default SSID:

Access points and routers all use a network name called the SSID.

Manufacturers normally ship their products with the same SSID set. For

example, the SSID for Linksys devices is normally "linksys." True,

knowing the SSID does not by itself allow your neighbors to break into

your network, but it is a start. More importantly, when someone finds

a default SSID, they see it is a poorly configured network and are

much more likely to attack it. Change the default SSID immediately

when configuring wireless security on your network.

Enable MAC Address Filtering:

Each piece of Wi-Fi gear possesses a unique identifier called the

physical address or MAC address. Access points and routers keep track

of the MAC addresses of all devices that connect to them. Many such

products offer the owner an option to key in the MAC addresses of

their home equipment, that restricts the network to only allow

connections from those devices. Do this, but also know that the

feature is not so powerful as it may seem. Hackers and their software

programs can fake MAC addresses easily.

Disable SSID Broadcast:

In Wi-Fi networking, the wireless access point or router typically

broadcasts the network name (SSID) over the air at regular intervals.

This feature was designed for businesses and mobile hotspots where Wi-

Fi clients may roam in and out of range. In the home, this roaming

feature is unnecessary, and it increases the likelihood someone will

try to log in to your home network. Fortunately, most Wi-Fi access

points allow the SSID broadcast feature to be disabled by the network

administrator.

Do Not Auto-Connect to Open Wi-Fi Networks:

Connecting to an open Wi-Fi network such as a free wireless hotspot or

your neighbor's router exposes your computer to security risks.

Although not normally enabled, most computers have a setting available

allowing these connections to happen automatically without notifying

you (the user). This setting should not be enabled except in temporary

situations.

Assign Static IP Addresses to Devices:

Most home networkers gravitate toward using dynamic IP addresses. DHCP

technology is indeed easy to set up. Unfortunately, this convenience

also works to the advantage of network attackers, who can easily

obtain valid IP addresses from your network's DHCP pool. Turn off DHCP

on the router or access point, set a fixed IP address range instead,

then configure each connected device to match. Use a private IP

address range (like 10.0.0.x) to prevent computers from being directly

reached from the Internet.

Enable Firewalls On Each Computer and the Router:

Modern network routers contain built-in firewall capability, but the

option also exists to disable them. Ensure that your router's firewall

is turned on. For extra protection, consider installing and running

personal firewall software on each computer connected to the router.

Turn Off the Network During Extended Periods of Non-Use:

The ultimate in wireless security measures, shutting down your network

will most certainly prevent outside hackers from breaking in. While

impractical to turn off and on the devices frequently, at least

consider doing so during travel or extended periods offline. Computer

disk drives have been known to suffer from power cycle wear-and-tear,

but this is a secondary concern for broadband modems and routers. If

only wired connections are used on a wireless router, the Wi-Fi option

can be turned off without any problem. (Mitchell, n.d)

References:

Chenoweth, T., Minch, R., & Tabor, S. (2010). Wireless Insecurity:

Examining User Security Behavior on Public Networks.

Communications of the ACM, 53(2), 134-138.

Cox, J. (Sept 14 2011). Measuring impact of Wi-Fi denial-of-service

attacks; Some attacks 'gain' more than others; a basis for smart

counter-attacks. Network World. Computer Database.

Dhull, S., & Singh, J. (2010). Study of Vulnerabilities in Wireless

Local Area Networks (WLAN). International Journal of Educational

Administration, 2(3), 727-731.

Dyce, K., & Barrett, M. (2006). Taking Care of (E)-Business?:

Australian IT Professionals' Views of Wireless Network Vulnerability

Assessments. Journal of Theoretical & Applied Electronic Commerce

Research, 1(2), 79-89.

Mitchell, B. (n.d). 10 Tips for Wireless Home Network Security.

About.com Guide. Retrieved from

http://compnetworking.about.com/od/wirelesssecurity/tp/wifisecurity.ht

m

Sreedhar, C. C., Madhusudhana Verma, S. S., & Kasiviswanath, N. N.

(2010). Potential Security Attacks On Wireless Networks And Their

Countermeasure. International Journal of Computer Science &

Information Technology, 2(5), 76-89. doi:10.5121/ijcsit.2010.2506