Home Wireless Network Security Risk Analysis By Daniel Scott Livingston, BSc A dissertation submitted to the School of Computing in partial fulfihnent of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science with Honours University of Tasmania November, 2007 I, Daniel Scott Livingston, assert that this thesis, submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Bachelor of Computing with Honours, contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any tertiary institution, and that to my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text of the thesis. Daniel Scott Livingston 7111/2007 Abstract It is becoming more and more common place to find wireless networks present in residential homes. This thesis investigates whether these networks are set up securely, if home users use the security features that are available and whether or not home users lack the knowledge to make the choices to make their networks secure. The thesis examines the risks associated with leaving a wireless network open and investigates whether or not such networks are frequented by casual "moochers" who simply wish to connect to the internet through these open wireless networks or alternatively whether there are attackers about with a more malicious intent To answers these questions four methods were used: wardriving to detect the number of open networks in the Sandy Bay residential area; honeypots to attempt to see what attacker/intruders do on an open network; a device critique to examine the security features that are available on home devices; and a survey ofhome users to find out how and if the devices could be improved. The results from this study show that there are a significant number of networks at risk, but that the honeypot system was not intruded upon. The user survey shows some possible directions for improvements in future wireless access points from a home user's point of view. 11 Acknowledgments I wish to thank all those who have enabled me to complete this thesis and to my supervisors Mrs Jacky Hartnett and Dr Daniel Rolf for providing me with the opportunity to cover this topic. Special thanks go to my fiancee for putting up with being ignored at times whilst I was working on this thesis. Thank you to those who participated in my survey giving me some results to talk about. Also, thanks goes to my fellow honours students whose discussion helped solidify my ideas and provided a starting point for others. Again thank you to all those who have contributed or aided me in some way. 111 Contents 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 2 Background Information ...................................................................................... 2 2.1 Home Networks ............................................................................................. 2 2.1.1 Wireless Ho1ne Networks ....................................................................... 2 2.1.2 Wireless Home Networks- Software Aides .......................................... 3 2.2 Wireless Security ........................................................................................... 4 2.2.1 Security Goals ........................................................................................ 4 2.2.2 Protocols ................................................................................................. 5 2.2.3 Wardriving .............................................................................................. 6 2.3 Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) ................................................................ 7 2.3.1 Misuse Detection .................................................................................... 7 2.3 .2 Anomaly Detection ................................................................................. 8 2.3.3 Supervised/Unsupervised Intrusion Detection Model. ........................... 8 2.3 .4 IDS Data Analysis .................................................................................. 8 2.3.5 IDS -Wireless Evolution ....................................................................... 9 2.3.6 Commercial Wireless IDS .................................................................... 10 2.3.7 Detection Errors- False Positives and Negatives ................................ 10 2.3.8 Wireless IDS for the Home .................................................................. 11 3 Methodology ...................................................................................................... 12 3. 1 Honeypot. ..................................................................................................... 12 3 .1.1 The Equipment and Setup .................................................................... 14 3.1.2 Location 1 ............................................................................................. 15 3.1.3 Location 2 ............................................................................................. 16 lV 3.1 .4 Legal and Ethical Issues ....................................................................... 17 3.2 Wardrive ...................................................................................................... 18 3.2.1 Goals ..................................................................................................... 18 3.2.2 The Equipment and Setup .................................................................... 19 3.2.3 Detection Procedure ............................................................................. 19 3 .2.4 Legal and Ethical issues ....................................................................... 20 3.3 Device Critique ............................................................................................ 22 3.3.1 Goals ..................................................................................................... 22 3.3.2 Method .................................................................................................. 22 3.4 User Survey ................................................................................................. 22 3.4.1 Goals ..................................................................................................... 22 3.4.2 Design ................................................................................................... 23 3.4.3 The survey ............................................................................................ 24 4 Results ................................................................................................................ 25 4.1 Honeypot. ..................................................................................................... 25 4.1.1 Data ...................................................................................................... 25 4.1.2 Discussion ............................................................................................ 25 4.2 Wardrive ...................................................................................................... 26 4.2.1 Data surnrnary ....................................................................................... 27 4.2.2 Discussion ............................................................................................ 30 4.3 Device Critique ............................................................................................ 32 4.3.1 Data sutntnary ....................................................................................... 32 4.3.2 Discussion ............................................................................................ 33 4.4 User Survey ................................................................................................. 34 4.4.1 Survey Section 1 ................................................................................... 34 v 4.4.2 Survey Section 2 ................................................................................... 35 4.4.3 Survey Section 3 ................................................................................... 35 4.4.4 Survey Section 4 ................................................................................... 36 4.4. 5 Survey Section 5 ................................................................................... 36 4.4.6 Discussion ............................................................................................ 37 5 Conclusions and Future work ............................................................................. 39 6 References .......................................................................................................... 42 7 Appendices ......................................................................................................... 45 7.1 Appendix A-User Survey .......................................................................... 45 7.2 Appendix B Device Critique .................................................................... 46 7.3 Appendix C- Wardriving ........................................................................... 46 VI List of Figures Figure 1 Honeypot site locations ................................................................................ 17 Figure 2 Area Assessed .............................................................................................. 20 Figure 3 Aggregated data showing Networks detected within 50 m ........................