Abstract:
Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) have become more prevalent and are widely deployed and used in many popular places like university campuses, airports, residences, cafes etc. With this growing popularity, the security of wireless network is also very important. In this study we present the security mechanisms available for WLANs. These security mechanisms are Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and 802.11i (WPA2).Our aim is to show how an attack can be made on systems using the above mentioned mechanisms. We have given a brief overview of their working, structure, algorithms used and have tried to explore the real timevulnerabilitiesbyissuingsuccessfulattacksagainstWEPandWPA2network. The attacks were done in an ad-hoc network, using three laptops with wi-fi facility. We begin with WEP protocol which employs a flawed RC4 algorithm is very much prone to attack and is easily crackable, then listing some of its weakness. Then we have a look on WPA as the enhanced standard of WEP, along with some flaws in it. Finally an attack on WPA is explained. CommView version 6.3 and Aircrack-ng 1.2 RC 1 are the tools (software) those we have used to launch the attacks. The process required for attacking are explained, along with the screen-shots to help understand the working.
Description:
We are thankful to Almighty Allah for his blessings for the successful completion of our thesis. Ourheartiestgratitude,profoundindebtednessanddeeprespectgotooursupervisor, Md. ShohrabHossain,AssistantProfessor,DepartmentofComputerScienceandEngineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh, for his constant supervision, affectionate guidance and great encouragement and motivation. His keen interest on the topic and valuable advices throughout the study was of great help in completing thesis.We also grateful to our reviewer Jahidul Arafat, Lecturer, CSE Dept, MIST.
We are especially grateful to the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) of Military Institute of Science and Technology (MIST) for providing their all out support during the thesis work.
Finally, we would like to thank our families and our course mates for their appreciable assistance, patience and suggestions during the course of our thesis.
