Sniffing on Wireless Sniffing on Wireless LANs LANs
Jan 03, 2016
Sniffing on Wireless LANsSniffing on Wireless LANs
Basic concept of wireless LANBasic concept of wireless LAN
• A type of local area network.
• Use high frequency Radio Wave (RF).
• Speed: 2Mbps to 54Mbps.
• Distance: 100 feet to several miles.
• IEEE 802.11.
• Access Point (AP)– Serves as a “hub” for wireless clients.– Bridge between wired and wireless LANs.– Similar to a basestation used for a cellular
phone network.
• Ad Hoc Mode– Client to client communication
• Infrastructure mode– Connect to AP
• BSS (Basic Service Set)– The set of clients and AP which have
recognized each other and have established communications.
• SSID or BSSID– Basic service set identifier
• ESS (extended services set)– Series of overlapping BSS connected by a
distributed system.
• Channel
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
2.40
0
2.41
2
2.43
7
2.46
2
2.47
4
Frequency (GHz)
Channel 7
Channel 9
Channel 1 Channel 6 Channel 11
Channel 2
Channel 10Channel 5
Channel 4
Channel 3 Channel 8
Source: http://www.pisa.org.hk/event/wlan_workshop.ppt
War DrivingWar Driving
• Originally, WarDriving was when crackers drove around in a car equipped with wireless gear looking for unsecured wireless networks, to gain illicit access.
• Over time, the term has evolved to include harmless types that simply checking on the RF environment.
• What are needed for war driving– Device capable of
• receiving 802.11b signal.
• Capable of moving around.
– Software that will log data from the device.• NetStumbler
• Over time, you can build up a database comprised of the network name, signal strength, location, and ip/namespace in use.
• PISA tried a war driving in Hong Kong on July 7,2002
(See: http://www.pisa.org.hk/event/wlan_workshop.ppt )
• Their findings– Discovered 187 access points with antenna (52
without antenna).– WEP enable: 43– WEP disable: 144
WEP ProtocolWEP Protocol
• Wired Equivalent privacy protocol is used in 802.11 network to protect link-level data during wireless transmission.
• WEP relies on a secret key k shared between the communicating parties.
• It is optional– That means some users may not turn it on.
Message
Keystream= RC4(v,k)
Ciphertextv
CRC
XOR
Plaintext
Transmitted Data
• Checksumming– Compute an integrity checksum c(M) on the
message M.– Concatenate the two to obtain a plaintext
P = <M,c(M)>
• Encryption– Choose an initialization vector (IV) v.– RC4 algorithm generates a keystream
RC4(v,k)• Long sequence of pseudorandom bytes
• A function of v and k.
– Exclusive-OR the plaintext with the keystream to obtain the ciphertext:
• Tranmission– Transmit the IV and the ciphertext over the
radio link.
),(4 kvRCPC
Weakness of WEPWeakness of WEP
• Presented in the paper– Scott Fluhrer, Itsik Mantin, and Adi Shamir,
“Weaknesses in the Key Scheduling Algorithm of RC4”.
• Invariance weakness– Existence of a large class of weak keys.
• IV weakness– Related key vulnerability
• Open-source implementations of the attack are now widely available.
• One of the best-known programs is AirSnort (http://airsnort.shmoo.com/ ).
• Key recovery with AirSnort takes only a few seconds once enough weakly-encrypted frames are gathered.
• Our TAs have tried this package before. It took about half day to collect enough packet to break the key.
A Screenshot of running AirSnort
SolutionsSolutions
• The 802.11 work group is now working on new encryption schemes. Some possible methods may include.– 802.1x
• Per-port user authentication
– WEP2
• Use VPN for the wireless connection– Encryption with IPSec or PPTP
Application
Transport(TCP, UDP)
Network (IP)
802.11b Link
802.1bPhysical
SSL
(VPN)
WEP
Network (IP)
802.11b Link
802.1bPhysical
WEP
Network (IP)
Ethernet Link
EthernetPhysical
Application
Transport(TCP, UDP)
Network (IP)
EthernetLink
EthernetPhysical
SSL
(VPN)
Router
Source: http://www.pisa.org.hk/event/wlan_workshop.ppt
Internet
Firewall Firewall
VPN
Local Area Networkof your organization.