Use of Packet Capture (Pcap) Software for Virtual Access Point Correlation

Abstract

Virtual access points (VAP) are a commonly utilized method to broadcast service set identifiers (SSID) with different privilege levels from the same access point (AP). While research has been focused on securing information transmitted using the IEEE 802.11 standard and the authentication of users on wireless local area networks (WLAN), little attention has been given to the security of VAPs utilized on APs to determine whether the presence of a less-privileged, less-secured SSID is a security vulnerability for the AP that hosts it. In this thesis, we collected beacon frames from VAPs hosted on WLAN APs and attempted to correlate VAPs using graph theory and beacon frame characteristics. We discovered that it is possible to correlate beacon frames using the beacon frame timestamp and, to a lesser extent, the received signal strength indicator.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 2019
Accession Number
AD1073643

Entities

People

  • Corey E. Lutton

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Authentication
  • Computer Network Security
  • Computer Science
  • Computers
  • Data Analysis
  • Department Of Defense
  • Graph Theory
  • Graphical User Interface
  • Local Area Networks
  • Mobile Phones
  • Network Science
  • Networks
  • Standards
  • United States Government
  • Vulnerability
  • Wireless Networks

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Aviation Safety and Air Traffic Management
  • Computer Networking
  • Theoretical Analysis.