Current Threats of Wireless Networks

CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Institutional Repository Current Threats of Wireless Networks Mardiana Mohamad Noor and Wan Haslina Hassan Communication System and Network (iKohza) Research Group, Malaysia Japan International Institute of Technology (MJIIT), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. [email protected], [email protected] using ready to use tools. On the other hand, the ABSTRACT flexibility and ubiquity of mobile devices such as This paper discusses current threats in wireless smartphones, tablets, phablets and laptops are the networks. Advancement and countermeasures for each main reason of the popularity of hotspots which threat such as sniffing, Man In the Middle Attack (MITM), Rogue Access Points (RAP), Denial Of are exposed of the rogue access points. Services (DoS) and social engineering are discussed in From the data gathered by Malaysian this paper. Some practical suggestions for service Communication and Multimedia Commission providers and users to mitigate the risks to the threats (MCMC) [1] until the second quarter of 2012, 1.2 are also presented. million of registered hotspots were recorded. For the purpose of comparison, in 2011, only 0.4 KEYWORDS million hotspots were registered. These statistics Current threats in WiFi, risks mitigation in WiFi, show that the number of hotspots subscription in network scanning, password cracking, MITM, 2012 is rather large. In other word, in Malaysia jamming attack, Rogue Access Points, countermeasures of wireless threats particularly, internet users are moving towards wireless connectivity. This scenario will definitely 1 INTRODUCTION raising the bar of security measures that should be Wireless networks are susceptible and taken especially in curbing intrusion into wireless exposed to attack because of its borderless nature. networks. Threat which is any action that causes security Cases of misuse, incidents and threats of breach is very significant in wireless network. For internet have been reported in Malaysia since 1997 example packet sniffing can be done passively to Malaysian Computer Emergency Response because of the hub-based configuration of the Team (MyCERT) [2]. Numbers of cases reported access points in wireless networks. Despite the keep increasing tremendously year by year which ease of deployment of such activity, it initiates confirm the upward trend of internet threats. The more dangerous attacks such as Man In The statistic from the report shows that the pattern of Middle (MITM) attack. MITM attacks such as attacks changes from time to time which basically session hijacking and MAC spoofing are some of follows the development of the internet. From the critical threats for wireless networks. In reality, 1997 until 2003 most of the incidents reported hacking tools are largely available in the market were due to spam and virus cases, but from 2004 and online. These tools are usually meant to be until 2011 there is tremendous incline in the used by penetration testers and for educational attempt to intrude and intrusion of the network purposes are being misused and abused by attack. In 2003 only 60 cases due to intrusion were underground hackers. Therefore, the sophistication reported, but in 2004, 368 cases were reported. In and frequency of attacks have increased; by just the same report, the inclination is very obvious ISBN: 978-0-9853483-3-5 ©2013 SDIWC 704 from 2007 until 2011 when attacks due to research concluded that inSSIDer is the best tool intrusion increase sharply by 861%. (shows vendor of the access point and indicate In this paper we present current and signal strength graphically) using Windows persistent threats to wireless networks and operating system and KisMAC is the best tool for accompanied by some active researches from Mac (detects WiFi silently, channel tuning academia regarding the advancement and some capability and detects wireless clients connected to counter measures to the threats. the access point). The second section of the paper discusses In [4], a war driving was conducted in some current threats in wireless networks and several neighbourhoods in Dubai, UAE in order to researches of developments and countermeasures investigate the current WiFi security issues. A to the attacks. The third part discusses security laptop running MAC OS X and a WiFi scanning risks to the wireless network due to the tool and a car were used in the war driving. From advancement of cloud computing, and the fourth the war driving in four different neighbourhoods a section presented some new hacking tools total number of 1,228 WiFi networks were found. available on the market. The last part of this paper Four categories of WiFi networks have been found presented some analysis and some recommended which are: counter measures to threats in wireless networks. a) Open Network – WiFi networks that did not implement any protection - 35% 2 THREATS OF WIRELESS NETWORKS b) WiFi implementing Wired Equivalence Privacy (WEP) - 26% 2.1 Network Scanning and Password Cracking c) WiFi implementing WiFi Protected Access Network scanning is a process when (WPA) - 30% hackers use tools to scan the network. The d) WiFi implementing WiFi Protected Access 2 - objectives of this activity are to: 9% a) find the vulnerabilities and security level of the From the war driving experience more than 50% network of the residents have no security or implementing b) determine signal strength weak security protocol. c) determine the accessibility of the target network Researches to attempt cracking WEP and d) map the target network WPA/2 were done in [5-8]. Series of attempts by After scanning the network, the attacker Fluhrer, Mantin and Shamir (also known as FMS), might proceed to get into the network. Despite of and later in 2004 a person under pseudoname the known weaknesses of WEP, it is still in use KoreK made a second attempt and succeeded. because of the several reasons which involves Tews, Weinmenn and Pyshkin (known as PTW) some issues of installation, interoperability, launched new generation attack in 2007 followed convenience and flexibility. by a Chopchop attack. Based on these successful In the following researches are the attempts, cracking tools were developed. In WEP evidences of vast availability of network scanning mode even though the length of the passphrase is tools and some of them are open sources. In [3] increased or complicated, only 30 minutes were and [4] war driving activities were carried out by taken to break the code. Nevertheless, users which using different tools and platform. In [3] it has are using WEP because of the convenience of been found that Cain and Able outperformed setting and interoperability, are advised to set Netstumbler and Kismet in terms of functions proper passphrase which will take longer time to because it possess ARP poison, VoIP logger, break and will create noise in the network. password crackers and built in WiFi scanner in the Even though WPA/WPA2 is said to be expense of volume of access points detected. In robust, it is still protected by a passphrase which [4] wardriving activity using Windows and Mac can be cracked by using “Dictionary Attack”. In operating systems were conducted concurrently [8], a new proposed space-time trade off solution and comparison and analysis of the best scanning is used where the Pair Master Keys (PMK) are pre tools using both platforms were presented. This calculated for each passphrase in the library and ISBN: 978-0-9853483-3-5 ©2013 SDIWC 705 store them into another library called Hash cookie for a particular website, especially when Library. This research also suggested employing the websites do not encrypt their traffic to the end cloud computing to generate possible passphrase user. and to take GPU parallel computing into Packet sniffing can be a handful task to consideration to effectively calculate PMK and perform in large networks because of incapability proofread the Hash Library. of the tools to sniff large amount of packets. A This section concludes that with the sophisticated form of packet sniffing is presented matured amount of wardriving and password in [11], where a passive monitoring system for cracking activities had developed the advanced complex wireless network is designed. This and powerful tools for network scanning and research is to design a robust framework to password cracking. monitor real time network passively on a large scale WiFi network. In [11], volume of data 2.2 Man In the Middle Attack (MITM) and gathered from sniffing activities was reduced, so Packet Sniffing the system was capable to listen to the traffic in MITM attack is to position the attacker the larger radius. between two hosts in order to hijack connection and injecting traffic. In wireless networks, MITM 2.3 Rogue Access Points (RAP) can occur as jamming by consistently transmitting The purpose of RAP is to hijack the signals to the existing wireless access points while connection of legitimate users is in order to sniff providing clear signal from another fake access the activities or to steal confidential credentials of points. Another MITM attack is by using a the users and later launch further attacks. With the spoofed de-association or de-authentication frames availability and competitive price of access points to hijack the connection between legitimate AP (AP) in the market, anyone can set a fake access and the users [9]. Wireless networks are more point especially in free WiFi hotspots. Moreover, susceptible to the kind of attacks because it causes nowadays most of the laptops can function as a less disturbances if the attacker poses as one of the soft AP. According to EC Council [12], there are client hosts in order to access the network and at least four available APs nowadays, which are: launch attack to a single host. a) Compact and pocket sized RAP device Packet sniffing is another significant threat plugged into an Ethernet port of corporate to wireless networks by using packet sniffer such network as Wireshark, Network Miner or Cain and Able.

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