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Executive summary
Executive summary
The objective of this project is to obtain insight in the vulnerabilities of WLAN security, in particular
the security of the Utwente WLAN, and provide recommendations to remove or mitigate these
vulnerabilities.
I used the first part of the project to found out as much as possible on WLAN security. Subsequently I
experimented with the most common attack tools to become familiar with their possibilities and
methods. Based on this preliminary investigation I created the following list of threats to wireless
networks.
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All the vulnerabilities that exist in a conventional wired network apply to wireless
technologies.
Interception and disclosure of sensitive information that is transmitted between two wireless
devices.
Denial of Service attacks at wireless connections or devices.
Identity capture of legitimate users and subsequent use for illicit access on corporate networks.
Theft of handheld devices leading to the disclosure of sensitive information.
With regard to security measures I concluded the following:
Basic security measures like WEP and MAC-filtering are weak and don’t provide the degree
of security most people expect. More advanced solutions are often expensive and timeconsuming to deploy. Examples of these advanced techniques are VPN and 802.1x. When
implemented in the right way, these techniques offer an acceptable level of security for most
purposes, but still contain certain vulnerabilities. The state-of-the-art solution 802.1i solves
most of these remaining vulnerabilities.
Based on the gained experience I designed two series of penetration tests to uncover these weaknesses
in practice. The results of these tests and recommendations based on these tests can be summarized as
follows:
The threats and vulnerabilities of WLANs are often underestimated or unknown especially for
SOHO networks. Approximately 60% of the personal WLANs detected are badly configured,
using a weak protection technique or have no protection in place at all. Users of the Utwente
WLAN (protected using the 802.1x technology) are well protected against outsiders, but not to
certain attacks from other internal users. In general the implemented security facilities of the
Utwente WLAN left a good impression. Nevertheless I make some recommendations. Various
security procedures aren’t documented and depend on the experience of administrators. I
recommend documenting all important procedures. Another recommendation concerns the
password policy for users. Users are not forced to change their passwords with regular
intervals or to use a defined difficulty level. The last recommendation concerns the use of an
intrusion detection system to protect users against each other. .
This paper provides insight in the vulnerabilities of WLAN security, in particular the security of the
Utwente WLAN and provides recommendations to remove or mitigate these vulnerabilities.