Asian Research Thesis Index

Abstract

Wireless local area network (WLAN) has changed the paradigm of communication and become
ubiquitous. As the number of devices connected on wireless is increasing, it is therefore,
essential to find vulnerabilities in the security of wireless networks. In this research, WLAN
security vulnerabilities are exposed in real time and digital forensics of WLAN for Windows and
Android operating system-based clients are conducted. A real time wardriving was conducted in
a residential area to emphasize the fact that WLAN broadcast sensitive information. The results
of wardriving showed that 97% of WLAN access points (AP) were using WPA2. According to
the data collected it was found that channel 11 and channel 1 were used by 52% WLAN APs and
the average number of clients per AP was 1.59. Tenda WiFi wireless access point was set up
with MAC filtering, hidden SSID and WPA2 security mechanisms in different combinations in
such a way as to add an additional layer of security to previous configuration. The vulnerability
assessment of security mechanisms of residential AP was performed with Kali Linux version
2017.1. A practical demonstration of exploiting MAC filtering, Hidden SSID with MAC filtering
and WPA2-PSK with hidden SSID and MAC filtering security mechanisms of AP was carried
out in real time. It was observed that the existing security mechanisms were vulnerable.
Furthermore, the digital traces left behind or stored in 802.11 based devices were also explored
in order to investigate wireless network attacks. Researchers have proposed probabilistic models
for detecting MAC spoofing attacks of WLAN clients. However, in this research, a live forensic
method based on changing position of legitimate client with respect to attack detector and
observing received signal strength of wireless packets to detect MAC filtering bypass attack was
proposed. De-authentication attacks on wireless networks were also detected. This thesis also
explored the methods of finding WLAN artifacts from Windows and Android OS devices to
determine whether a particular device was connected to an unauthorized wireless network or not.
Researchers have exploited many security mechanisms of WLAN focusing upon a single
parameter of WLAN security at a time. However, in this work, three available security
mechanisms were cascaded to produce a three-layer security mechanism which was exploited in
real-time.

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