An analyzing process on wireless protection criteria focusing on (WPA) within computer network security

Network security from a long ago approaches to cryptography and hash functions which are tremendous and due to the weakness of different vulnerabilities in the networks and obviously there is a significant need for analyzes. In this manuscript, the state-of-the-art wireless environment is focused solely on the sensor technology, in which security needs to be integrated with the Wireless Protected Access (WPA) standards. Wireless networking includes numerous points of view from wireless sensor systems, ad hoc mobile devices, Wi-Max and many more. The authentication and dynamic encryption is modified by system managers so that general communication can be anchored without any sniper effort in order to perform higher degrees of security and overall execution. The key exchange mechanism in wireless systems such as forward cases is accompanied by the sophisticated cryptography so as to anchor the whole computer state. The manuscript carries out a significant audit of test points of view using the methodologies used for the cryptography angle for protection and honesty in the wireless case, stressing Wi-Fi Secure Protected (WPA) needs

Security technologies for wireless access to local area networks

In today’s world, computers and networks are connected to all life aspects and professions. The amount of information, personal and organizational, spread over the network is increasing exponentially. Simultaneously, malicious attacks are being developed at the same speed, which makes having a secure network system a crucial factor on every level and in any organization. Achieving a high protection level has been the goal of many organizations, such as the Wi-Fi Alliance R , and many standards and protocols have been developed over time. This work addresses the historical development of WLAN security technologies, starting from the oldest standard, WEP, and reaching the newly released standard WPA3, passing through the several versions in between,WPA, WPS, WPA2, and EAP. Along with WPA3, this work addresses two newer certificates, Enhanced OpenTM and Easy ConnectTM. Furthermore, a comparative analysis of the previous standards is also presented, detailing their security mechanisms, flaws, attacks, and the measures they have adopted to prevent these attacks. Focusing on the new released WPA3, this work presents a deep study on both WPA3 and EAP-pwd. The development of WPA3 had the objective of providing strong protection, even if the network’s password is considered weak. However, this objective was not fully accomplished and some recent research work discovered design flaws in this new standard. Along with the above studies, this master thesis’ work builds also a network for penetration testing using a set of new devices that support the new standard. A group of possible attacks onWi-Fi latest security standards was implemented on the network, testing the response against each of them, discussing the reason behind the success or the failure of the attack, and providing a set of countermeasures applicable against these attacks. Obtained results show that WPA3 has overcome many of WPA2’s issues, however, it is still unable to overcome some major Wi-Fi vulnerabilities.No mundo de hoje, os computadores e as redes estão conectados praticamente a todos os aspectos da nossa vida pessoal e profissional. A quantidade de informações, pessoais e organizacionais, espalhadas pela rede está a aumentar exponencialmente. Simultaneamente, também os ataques maliciosos estão a aumentar à mesma velocidade, o que faz com que um sistema de rede seguro seja um fator crucial a todos os níveis e em qualquer organização. Alcançar altos níveis de proteção tem sido o objetivo de trabalho de muitas organizações, como a Wi-Fi Alliance R , tendo muitos standards e protocolos sido desenvolvidos ao longo do tempo. Este trabalho aborda o desenvolvimento histórico das tecnologias de segurança para WLANs, começando pelo standard mais antigo, WEP, e acabando no recém-chegado WPA3, passando pelas várias versões intermedias, WPA, WPS, WPA2 e EAP. Juntamente com o WPA3, este trabalho aborda os dois certificados mais recentes, Enhanced OpenTM e Easy ConnectTM. Além disso, também é apresentada uma análise comparativa dos standards anteriores, detalhando os seus principais mecanismos de segurança, falhas, ataques a que são susceptíveis e medidas adotadas para evitar esses ataques. Quanto ao novo WPA3 e EAP-pwd, este trabalho apresenta um estudo aprofundado sobre os seus modos "Personal" e "Enterprise". O desenvolvimento do WPA3 teve por objetivo fornecer proteção forte, mesmo que a password de rede seja considerada fraca. No entanto, esse objetivo não foi totalmente alcançado e alguma investigação realizada recentemente detectou falhas de desenho nesse novo padrão. Juntamente com os estudo dos standards acima referidos, o trabalho realizado para esta tese de mestrado também constrói uma rede para testes de penetração usando um conjunto de novos dispositivos que já suportam o novo standard. São aplicados vários ataques aos mais recentes padrões de segurança Wi-Fi, é testada a sua resposta contra cada um deles, é discutindo o motivo que justifica o sucesso ou a falha do ataque, e são indicadas contramedidas aplicáveis a esses ataques. Os resultados obtidos mostram que o WPA3 superou muitos dos problemas do WPA2 mas que, no entanto, ainda é incapaz de superar algumas das vulnerabilidades presentes nas redes Wi-Fi.First, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to those who gave me the possibility to complete my study and get my Master degree, the Aga Khan Foundation, who has supported me financiall

Cross-validation based man-in-the-middle attack protection

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science by researchIn recent years, computer network has widely used in almost all areas of our social life. It has been profoundly changing the way of our living. However, various network attacks have become an increasingly problem at the same time. In local area networks, Man-in-the-Middle attack, as one kind of ARP attack, is the most common attack. This research implemented a cross-validation based Man-in-the-Middle attack protection method (CVP). This approach enables a host to check whether another host that responds the initialising host with an ARP reply packet is genuine. It then allows the ARP cache table of the initialising hosts to be updated with the MAC address and IP address pairs of the genuine host and to place the MAC address of inauthentic hosts into a blacklist. This research introduced ARP and ICMP firstly, including the structure of ARP and ICMP packets, and their workflows. Secondly, this research discussed the types of ARP attacks and the existing ARP attacks protection methods, including their principles, applicable environment, advantages and disadvantages. Then, this research proposed and implemented a cross-validation based Man-in-the-Middle attack protection method. Simulations and experiments were performed to examine the effect of CVP method. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed cross-validation based method in protecting network from Man-in-the-Middle attack. Compared with the existing Man-in-the-Middle attack protection methods, CVP requires no extra devices and administration, leading to more secure local area networks and low cost. It also has made a “tabu” to attackers. That is, it places the MAC address of attackers into a blacklist. So they will be identified immediately if they try to attack the network again

IPv6: a new security challenge

Tese de mestrado em Segurança Informática, apresentada à Universidade de Lisboa, através da Faculdade de Ciências, 2011O Protocolo de Internet versão 6 (IPv6) foi desenvolvido com o intuito de resolver alguns dos problemas não endereçados pelo seu antecessor, o Protocolo de Internet versão 4 (IPv4), nomeadamente questões relacionadas com segurança e com o espaço de endereçamento disponível. São muitos os que na última década têm desenvolvido estudos sobre os investimentos necessários à sua adoção e sobre qual o momento certo para que o mesmo seja adotado por todos os players no mercado. Recentemente, o problema da extinção de endereçamentos públicos a ser disponibilizado pelas diversas Region Internet registry – RIRs - despertou o conjunto de entidades envolvidas para que se agilizasse o processo de migração do IPv4 para o IPv6. Ao contrário do IPv4, esta nova versão considera a segurança como um objetivo fundamental na sua implementação, nesse sentido é recomendado o uso do protocolo IPsec ao nível da camada de rede. No entanto, e devido à imaturidade do protocolo e à complexidade que este período de transição comporta, existem inúmeras implicações de segurança que devem ser consideradas neste período de migração. O objetivo principal deste trabalho é definir um conjunto de boas práticas no âmbito da segurança na implementação do IPv6 que possa ser utilizado pelos administradores de redes de dados e pelas equipas de segurança dos diversos players no mercado. Nesta fase de transição, é de todo útil e conveniente contribuir de forma eficiente na interpretação dos pontos fortes deste novo protocolo assim como nas vulnerabilidades a ele associadas.IPv6 was developed to address the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses, but has not yet seen global deployment. Recent trends are now finally changing this picture and IPv6 is expected to take off soon. Contrary to the original, this new version of the Internet Protocol has security as a design goal, for example with its mandatory support for network layer security. However, due to the immaturity of the protocol and the complexity of the transition period, there are several security implications that have to be considered when deploying IPv6. In this project, our goal is to define a set of best practices for IPv6 Security that could be used by IT staff and network administrators within an Internet Service Provider. To this end, an assessment of some of the available security techniques for IPv6 will be made by means of a set of laboratory experiments using real equipment from an Internet Service Provider in Portugal. As the transition for IPv6 seems inevitable this work can help ISPs in understanding the threats that exist in IPv6 networks and some of the prophylactic measures available, by offering recommendations to protect internal as well as customers’ networks

Performance analysis of wireless intrusion detection systems

Wireless intrusion detection system (WIDS) has become a matter of increasing concern in recent years as a crucial element in wireless network security. WIDS monitors 802.11 traffic to identify the intrusive activities, and then alerts the complementary prevention part to combat the attacks. Selecting a reliable WIDS system necessitates inevitably taking into account a credible evaluation of WIDSs performance. WIDS effectiveness is considered the basic factor in evaluating the WIDS performance, thus it receives great attention in this thesis. Most previous experimental evaluations of intrusion detection systems (IDSs) were concerned with the wired IDSs, with an apparent lack of evaluating the wireless IDSs (WIDSs). In this thesis, we try to manipulate three main critiques of most pervious evaluations; lack of comprehensive evaluation methodology, holistic attack classification, and expressive evaluation metrics. In this thesis, we introduce a comprehensive evaluation methodology that covers all the essential dimensions for a credible evaluation of WIDSs performance. The main pivotal dimensions in our methodology are characterizing and generating the evaluation dataset, defining reliable and expressive evaluation metrics, and overcoming the evaluation limitations. Basically, evaluation dataset consists of two main parts; normal traffic (as a background) and malicious traffic. The background traffic, which comprises normal and benign activities in the absence of attacks, was generated in our experimental evaluation tests as real controlled traffic. The second and important part of the dataset is the malicious traffic which is composed of intrusive activities. Comprehensive and credible evaluation of WIDSs necessitates taking into account all possible attacks. While this is operationally impossible, it is necessary to select representative attack test cases that are extracted mainly from a comprehensive classification of wireless attacks. Dealing with this challenge, we have developed a holistic taxonomy of wireless security attacks from the perspective of the WIDS evaluator. The second pivotal dimension in our methodology is defining reliable evaluation metrics. We introduce a new evaluation metric EID (intrusion detection effectiveness) that manipulates the drawbacks of the previously proposed metrics, especially the common drawback of their main notion that leads to measuring a relative effectiveness. The notion of our developed metric EID helps in measuring the actual effectiveness. We also introduce another metric RR (attack recognition rate) to evaluate the ability of WIDS to recognize the attack type. The third important dimension in our methodology is overcoming the evaluation limitations. The great challenge that we have faced in the experimental evaluation of WIDSs is the uncontrolled traffic over the open wireless medium. This uncontrolled traffic affects the accuracy of the measurements. We overcame this problem by constructing an RF shielded testbed to take all the measurements under our control without any interfering from any adjacent stations. Finally, we followed our methodology and conducted experimental evaluation tests of two popular WIDSs (Kismet and AirSnare), and demonstrated the utility of our proposed solutions

Analyse de performance des systèmes de détection d’intrusion sans-fil

La sécurité des réseaux sans fil fait l’objet d’une attention considérable ces dernières années. Toutefois, les communications sans fil sont confrontées à plusieurs types de menaces et d’attaques. Par conséquent, d’importants efforts, visant à sécuriser davantage les réseaux sans fil, ont dû être fournis pour en vue de lutter contre les attaques sans fil. Seulement, croire qu’une prévention intégrale des attaques peut s’effectuer au niveau de la première ligne de défense d’un système (pare-feux, chiffrement, …) n’est malheureusement qu’illusion. Ainsi, l’accent est de plus en plus porté sur la détection des attaques sans fil au travers d’une seconde ligne de défense, matérialisée par les systèmes de détection d’intrusions sans fil (WIDS). Les WIDS inspectent le trafic sans fil, respectant la norme 802.11, ainsi que les activités du système dans le but de détecter des activités malicieuses. Une alerte est ensuite envoyée aux briques chargées de la prévention pour contrer l’attaque. Sélectionner un WIDS fiable dépend principalement de l’évaluation méticuleuse de ses performances. L’efficacité du WIDS est considérée comme le facteur fondamental lors de l’évaluation de ses performances, nous lui accordons donc un grand intérêt dans ces travaux de thèse. La majeure partie des études expérimentales visant l’évaluation des systèmes de détection d’intrusions (IDS) s’intéressait aux IDS filaires, reflétant ainsi une carence claire en matière d’évaluation des IDS sans fil (WIDS). Au cours de cette thèse, nous avons mis l’accent sur trois principales critiques visant la plupart des précédentes évaluations : le manque de méthodologie d’évaluation globale, de classification d’attaque et de métriques d’évaluation fiables. Au cours de cette thèse, nous sommes parvenus à développer une méthodologie complète d’évaluation couvrant toutes les dimensions nécessaires pour une évaluation crédible des performances des WIDSs. Les axes principaux de notre méthodologie sont la caractérisation et la génération des données d’évaluation, la définition de métriques d’évaluation fiables tout en évitant les limitations de l’évaluation. Fondamentalement, les données d’évaluation sont constituées de deux principales composantes à savoir: un trafic normal et un trafic malveillant. Le trafic normal que nous avons généré au cours de nos tests d’évaluation était un trafic réel que nous contrôlions. La deuxième composante des données, qui se trouve être la plus importante, est le trafic malveillant consistant en des activités intrusives. Une évaluation complète et crédible des WIDSs impose la prise en compte de tous les scénarios et types d’attaques éventuels. Cela étant impossible à réaliser, il est nécessaire de sélectionner certains cas d’attaque représentatifs, principalement extraits d’une classification complète des attaques sans fil. Pour relever ce défi, nous avons développé une taxinomie globale des attaques visant la sécurité des réseaux sans fil, d’un point de vue de l’évaluateur des WIDS. Le deuxième axe de notre méthodologie est la définition de métriques fiables d’évaluation. Nous avons introduit une nouvelle métrique d’évaluation, EID (Efficacité de la détection d’intrusion), visant à pallier les limitations des précédentes métriques proposées. Nous avons démontré l’utilité de la métrique EID par rapport aux autres métriques proposées précédemment et comment elle parvenait à mesurer l’efficacité réelle tandis que les précédentes métriques ne mesuraient qu’une efficacité relative. L’EID peut tout aussi bien être utilisé pour l’évaluation de l’efficacité des IDS filaires et sans fil. Nous avons aussi introduit une autre métrique notée RR (Taux de Reconnaissance), pour mesurer l’attribut de reconnaissance d’attaque. Un important problème se pose lorsque des tests d’évaluation des WIDS sont menés, il s’agit des données de trafics incontrôlés sur le support ouvert de transmission. Ce trafic incontrôlé affecte sérieusement la pertinence des mesures. Pour outrepasser ce problème, nous avons construit un banc d’essai RF blindé, ce qui nous a permis de prendre des mesures nettes sans aucune interférence avec quelconque source de trafic incontrôlé. Pour finir, nous avons appliqué notre méthodologie et effectué des évaluations expérimentales relatives à deux WIDSs populaires (Kismet et AirSnare); nous avons démontré à l’issue de ces évaluations pratiques et l’utilité de nos solutions proposées. ABSTRACT : Wireless intrusion detection system (WIDS) has become a matter of increasing concern in recent years as a crucial element in wireless network security. WIDS monitors 802.11 traffic to identify the intrusive activities, and then alerts the complementary prevention part to combat the attacks. Selecting a reliable WIDS system necessitates inevitably taking into account a credible evaluation of WIDSs performance. WIDS effectiveness is considered the basic factor in evaluating the WIDS performance, thus it receives great attention in this thesis. Most previous experimental evaluations of intrusion detection systems (IDSs) were concerned with the wired IDSs, with an apparent lack of evaluating the wireless IDSs (WIDSs). In this thesis, we try to manipulate three main critiques of most pervious evaluations; lack of comprehensive evaluation methodology, holistic attack classification, and expressive evaluation metrics. In this thesis, we introduce a comprehensive evaluation methodology that covers all the essential dimensions for a credible evaluation of WIDSs performance. The main pivotal dimensions in our methodology are characterizing and generating the evaluation dataset, defining reliable and expressive evaluation metrics, and overcoming the evaluation limitations. Basically, evaluation dataset consists of two main parts; normal traffic (as a background) and malicious traffic. The background traffic, which comprises normal and benign activities in the absence of attacks, was generated in our experimental evaluation tests as real controlled traffic. The second and important part of the dataset is the malicious traffic which is composed of intrusive activities. Comprehensive and credible evaluation of WIDSs necessitates taking into account all possible attacks. While this is operationally impossible, it is necessary to select representative attack test cases that are extracted mainly from a comprehensive classification of wireless attacks. Dealing with this challenge, we have developed a holistic taxonomy of wireless security attacks from the perspective of the WIDS evaluator. The second pivotal dimension in our methodology is defining reliable evaluation metrics. We introduce a new evaluation metric EID (intrusion detection effectiveness) that manipulates the drawbacks of the previously proposed metrics, especially the common drawback of their main notion that leads to measuring a relative effectiveness. The notion of our developed metric EID helps in measuring the actual effectiveness. We also introduce another metric RR (attack recognition rate) to evaluate the ability of WIDS to recognize the attack type. The third important dimension in our methodology is overcoming the evaluation limitations. The great challenge that we have faced in the experimental evaluation of WIDSs is the uncontrolled traffic over the open wireless medium. This uncontrolled traffic affects the accuracy of the measurements. We overcame this problem by constructing an RF shielded testbed to take all the measurements under our control without any interfering from any adjacent stations. Finally, we followed our methodology and conducted experimental evaluation tests of two popular WIDSs (Kismet and AirSnare), and demonstrated the utility of our proposed solutions

A Comprehensive Survey on the Cyber-Security of Smart Grids: Cyber-Attacks, Detection, Countermeasure Techniques, and Future Directions

One of the significant challenges that smart grid networks face is cyber-security. Several studies have been conducted to highlight those security challenges. However, the majority of these surveys classify attacks based on the security requirements, confidentiality, integrity, and availability, without taking into consideration the accountability requirement. In addition, some of these surveys focused on the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) model, which does not differentiate between the application, session, and presentation and the data link and physical layers of the Open System Interconnection (OSI) model. In this survey paper, we provide a classification of attacks based on the OSI model and discuss in more detail the cyber-attacks that can target the different layers of smart grid networks communication. We also propose new classifications for the detection and countermeasure techniques and describe existing techniques under each category. Finally, we discuss challenges and future research directions

Cybersecurity: Past, Present and Future

The digital transformation has created a new digital space known as cyberspace. This new cyberspace has improved the workings of businesses, organizations, governments, society as a whole, and day to day life of an individual. With these improvements come new challenges, and one of the main challenges is security. The security of the new cyberspace is called cybersecurity. Cyberspace has created new technologies and environments such as cloud computing, smart devices, IoTs, and several others. To keep pace with these advancements in cyber technologies there is a need to expand research and develop new cybersecurity methods and tools to secure these domains and environments. This book is an effort to introduce the reader to the field of cybersecurity, highlight current issues and challenges, and provide future directions to mitigate or resolve them. The main specializations of cybersecurity covered in this book are software security, hardware security, the evolution of malware, biometrics, cyber intelligence, and cyber forensics. We must learn from the past, evolve our present and improve the future. Based on this objective, the book covers the past, present, and future of these main specializations of cybersecurity. The book also examines the upcoming areas of research in cyber intelligence, such as hybrid augmented and explainable artificial intelligence (AI). Human and AI collaboration can significantly increase the performance of a cybersecurity system. Interpreting and explaining machine learning models, i.e., explainable AI is an emerging field of study and has a lot of potentials to improve the role of AI in cybersecurity.Comment: Author's copy of the book published under ISBN: 978-620-4-74421-

Extending AES with DH Key-Exchange to Enhance VoIP Encryption in Mobile Networks

Recently,the evolution and progress have become significant in the field of information technology and mobile technology, especially inSmartphone applications that are currently widely spreading. Due to the huge developments in mobile and smartphone technologies in recent years, more attention is given to voice data transmission such as VoIP (Voice overIP) technologies– e.g. (WhatsApp, Skype, and Face Book Messenger). When using VoIP services over smartphones, there are always security and privacy concerns like the eavesdropping of calls between the communicating parties. Therefore, there is a pressing need to address these risks by enhancing the security level and encryption methods. In this work, we use scheme to encrypt VoIP channels using (128, 192 & 256-bit) enhanced encryption based on the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm, by extending it with the well-known Diffie-Hellman (DH) key exchange method. We have performed a series of real tests on the enhanced (AES-DH) algorithm and compared its performance with the generic AES algorithm. The results have shown that we can get a significant increase in the encryption strength at a very small overhead between 4% and 7% of execution timebetween AES and AEScombine withDH for all scenario which was incurred by added time of encryption and decryption. Our approach uses high security and speed and reduces the voice delay.In dealing with sound transfer process via the internet, we use the SIP server to authenticate the communication process between the two parties. The implementation is done on a mobile device (Which is operated by (Android) system) because it has recently been widely used among different people around the world.اصبحت الثورة والتطور كبيرة حديثاً في حقول تكنولوجيا االتصاالت واليواتف النقالة، وخصوصا في تطبيقات اليواتف الذكية التي تنتشر حاليا بشكل واسع. وتم اعطاء المزيد من االىتمام لنقل البيانات الصوتية مثل تكنولوجيا االتصال عبر بروتكول االنترنت، عمى سبيل المثال: )الواتساب، السكايب، الفيس بوك، والماسنجر(. ويعزى ذلك لمتطور الكبير في تكنولوجيا اليواتف النقالة والذكية في السنوات االخيرة. عند استخدام خدمات االتصال عبر بروتكول االنترنت VoIP ،ىناك مخاوف دائمة حول الحماية والخصوصية كالتجسس عمى المكالمات بين جيات االتصال. ولذلك ىنالك حاجة ماسة لمعالجة ىذه المخاطر عن طريق تحسين مستوى الحماية وطرق التشفير. في ىذا العمل، نستخدم/ نجمع بين اثنتين من الخوارزميات لتشفير قنوات االتصال عبر بروتوكول االنترنت )128 ، 192 ،و 256 بت( عبر خوارزمية AESوتمديدىا عبر طريقة تبادل ديفي ىيممان الرئيسية المعروفة. وقمنا باداء العديد من التجارب الحقيقية عمى DH-AES ، وقمنا بمقارنة ادائيا مع اداء خوارزمية معيار التشفير المتقدم العامة. اظيرت النتائج انو بامكاننا الحصول عمى زيادة كبيرة في قوة التشفير بنسبة صغيرة جدا بين 4 %و7 %من وقت التنفيذ بين AESو DH/AES لجميع السيناريو والتي تم تكبدىا من قبل الوقت المضاف لمتشفير وفك التشفير. يستخدم نيجنا درجة عالية من الحماية والسرعة ويقمل من تأخير الصوت، ونستخدم في التعامل مع عممية نقل الصوت عبر االنترنت Server SIPلتوثيق عممية االتصال بين الجيتين. وتم التنفيذ عمى ىاتف نقال يعمل عمى نظام اندرويد؛ النو استخدم بشكل واسع مؤخرا بين مختمف الناس حول العالم