Wireless Network Security Tamara C Smith

Road Map Defining wireless security Wired equivalent privacy Steps to take before using wireless networks Wardriving/war chalking Packet Sniffers How to manage the web server security Problems Solutions Coclusion Questions?

What is wireless security? Wireless: to have no wires when connecting to another device or location Network: the grouping of two or more computers to one another Security: to ensure that all information is kept protected and available to users who are authorized Can also involve data encryption along with uing a id and password to access information

Wireless security deals with mainly the same concepts of security on a regular computer in most ways You have to have a set up that protects your information from unwanted sources. Having a setup makes it easier to prevent this from happening network your using radio signals to communicate with others through a network. using radio signals, other devices can pick up your signal when you’re traveling outside of your network

Other users can send and receive information without you even knowing about it Spams E-mails

Steps to take before using wireless networks Secure either your router or access points Broadcast your service set identifier (SSID) Allows others to view your network and try to compromise your network Instead of using encryption privacy, try enabling your Wi-Fi protected access Its easy to exploit weakness of wireless encryption privacy Use MAC filtering controls You can assign access to only networks in your system or those that know about your network Disable your remote admininstrator Should only be used when specifying a known IP address Anyone can find and get access to your network and make changes

Wired equivalent privacy Also known as W.E.P Intended to provide a level of data privacy that is the same to a wired network Seeks to establish similar protection to the offered by the wired networks physical security measures by encrypting data transmitted. Protects the vulnerable wireless link between clients and access points

War driving/War chalking This is a big threat when in comes to web security D: The act of driving around in a vehicle with a laptop computer, an antenna and an 802.11 wireless LAN adapter to exploit existing networks. also calls phone numbers to find unprotected modems C: resource of locating wireless networks for everyone to use marking buildings in the area of wireless networks. exploits wireless networks that have ranges that extend outside the perimeter of buildings In order to gain free internet access or illegal access to an organization’s data The idea is to provide a visual clue indicating the presence of wireless networks so that people can obtain a free Internet connection

How war chalkers display access points

Packet Sniffers Defined: a piece of a message transmitted over a packet-switching network contains the destination address in addition to the data. are often called datagram’s. (in IP networks ) It can be good and bad reads your information as it comes across the network without you even knowing. troubleshooting problems with network communications

Con’t example : There is software to prevent this from accruing if you’re sending information through an Ethernet network, all your information will be sent out like a relay for every PC to see. All the PC’s on the network should ignore it because it has a certain destination that it has to go There is software to prevent this from accruing Ethereal 0.8.18 Freeware Analyzer 2.1 Freeware Dsniff 2.3 Freeware

How to manage the web server security Remove all unneeded services from your web server. An unneeded service can become an avenue of attack Disallow all remote administration unless it is done using a one-time password or an encrypted link Limit the number of persons having administrator or root level access

Log all user activity and maintain those logs in an encrypted form on the web server store them on a separate machine on your Intranet

Intrusion Detection Systems very important when it comes to network security able to find out which network access has to be monitored more successful way to patrol your network for anything that is out of the ordinary on your network Started as a patrol of the standalone computer but it quickly evolved to a form of detection that had little to know limits beginning to develop detection systems that detect potential and some of the actual network invaders

Con’t Have the ability to create and decide which profile of expected user behavior Example: continuous log in attempt can lead to the network thinking that there is a hacker involved Send out a network issue message to inform the system admin Never overlook the messages that the network send you

Goals for IDS detecting attacks that involve the network scanning over the different hosts actually have the ability to create and decide which profile of expected user behavior

Problems Public web servers continue to be attractive targets for hackers seeking to embarrass organizations or promote a political agenda denial-of-service attack pornographic material posting of political messages deletion of files the placement of malicious software

Solutions Follow known best practices Apply software patches as soon as they are announced by your incident response team or your vendor.

Conclusion In summary after doing the research on wireless networks and security there are much to be learned and much to be discover. Everyday new technology is either invented, changed or updated. There are many hackers out there who try to compromise the networks whether its wireless networks or just networks systems. The only safe guards to secure your networks are to always be monitoring your systems. The debate what is actually better or secure is really up to the hackers that are able to exploit the systems. Only time will tell until there is a safe wireless network.

?Questions?