Wireless Networks and Security Assignment.

Purpose of the assessment:

The purpose of this assignment is to exercise and develop skills required to design secure wireless networks, addressing the need of clients. In this assessment, students will be able to

• Apply their knowledge of wireless networking technologies.
• Apply their knowledge of wireless security solutions.
• Decide and choose among competing technologies and products

Description of the assessment:

Part 1- Practical Short Project: Secure Wireless CCTV System by Dr Vinod Mirchandani

Your friend Mr Raju has rented a new house in a Melbourne suburb where the number of robberies (breakins) are high. Raju knows that you are enrolled in MN603 Wireless Security Unit at MIT. He approaches you to help him out by you creating a secure wireless CCTV camera based system so that he and his belongings in the house can remain safe Although, commercial wireless CCTV systems can be obtained from stores like Bunnings and Harvey Norman they are expensive, require technical knowledge and are beyond the budget of Raju.

Raju has recently won a new mobile phone in a maths quiz held on Channel 13 of Australia. As a result Raju's previous phone based on Android OS has become spare. The phone can operate a WLAN and has good quality camera.

Your mission is to help Raju out with a simple and cost effective way of creating a secure wireless CCTV system. Raju needs to get the CCTV system operational by you ASAP as he wants to feel secure in his new property.

You need to carry out some online research of the way in which you can convert Raju's old phone into a secure wireless CCTV system.

Your group needs to do the following tasks and write a Group Report for Part 1. You MUST mention in the Report which Tasks were done by each Group Member

1) Research the possible ways of creating such a CCTV system for the above Case study to help Raju out. Which way would be the best possible approach. Justify your answer.

2) Determine and explain the steps by which you can create a secure wireless CCTV system from Raju's phone.

3) Draw a diagram of the setup.

4) Explain the considerations of the place where you will mount Raju's old mobile phone converted into a CCTV system.

5) What security protocols you will consider using? Justify your answer?

6) What are the possible advantages and disadvantages of such a system?

Part 2- Case Study: Performance Evaluation of Handoff in a Secure and Open 802.11 WLAN network by Dr Vinod Mirchandani

Your group is employed as wireless security engineers by Emerald Lagoon Hotel to design and test a 802.11 Wireless LAN network to support traffic generated by the guests in the hotel. The WLAN network should allow the guests to freely roam around in the corridors and the lobby and at the same time have access to the hotels WLAN network. This necessitates the use of proper handoff mechanism to ensure that the guests traffic is seamlessly handed off between the access points.

The hotel is to offer both an open access authentication to all the guests as a complimentary service and shared key authentication with suitable security protection for customers who are interested in having a secure transfer of their information. This service will be offered to that customer who is willing to pay. As this is an indoor environment so the RF propagation characteristics also come into play. So, a proper choice of (preferably) interoperable WLANs also needs to be made along with suitable antennas in the final network.

Apart from the above requirements it is important that the handoff time is measured to determine if it can support a mix of real time and non-real time traffic that is to be generated by the guests for the both the open as well as the secure network.

Emerald Lagoon hotel is on a tight schedule and budget so your group needs to quickly create a small testbed using open source tools and software to measure the handoff time. Your group has been told by your IT department of the hotel that in the past they have used Iperf tool to emulate the generation of network traffic, Wireshark to sniff the packets and Tcpdump/Windump to get detailed insight into the MAC frames.

For the above case scenario you should determine the handoff time for UDP traffic generated at 5-7 different data rates, then TCP traffic for 5-7 different data rates and then for a mix of TCP and UDP traffic at the same five or seven different data rates.

You need to repeat the above study for Access points using a shared secure key and for the same traffic types and data rates. Also, a key question that you need to answer from this study if the handoff time is dependent on the data rates, clients speed and security.

As part of the final design you need to also recommend a suitable authentication mechanism for the secured key WLAN system in the hotel.

Note: You also need to undertake a serious literature research on tools, security equipment required and any issues that may arise.

Note: If you don't have access to two Access Points to carry out the above measurements  then try using two Mobile Phones as hot spots.

2. Requirements-

Design the network to evaluate the performance of handoff as specified in the above scenario from scratch. You have to submit a group report and specify each individual group member's contribution in front page. You should address the following tasks in your report:

Group member one:

• Explain the theory behind handoff in 802.11 WLAN and research the literature for techniques to measure handoff performance and issues associated with them.
• Create and discuss the experimental setup for the performance measurement in the above case study with the help of figures.
• Create and discuss the Test plan with the help of Figures and tables to evaluate the handoff performance. Provide adequate justifications for each step in the plan.
• List the networking, devices and software required including their costs.

Group member two:

• Research the mechanism(s) to support handoffs in 802.11 WLANs proposed by IEEE.
• Prepare the experimental setup of Group member one - Devices, software installations, proper allocation of IP addresses, frequencies and connections and the Testing of connectivity.
• Creation of suitable traffic types and their details such as packet size, transport protocols used, data rates etc.
• Methodical measurement of performance and its tabulation for both the open access authentication and shared key case.

Group member three:

• Research the methods by which Quality of Service (QoS) can be provided during handoff in WLANs.
• Discuss the scenario in which the test was conducted such as the height and orientation of devices, antenna types, floor plan with distances, show any obstructions, walls, distances between devices
• Document the work of Group members two and one and prepare a complete report in close consultation with members 1 and 2.
• Discuss also in the report in the following sections: executive summary, introduction, theoretical explanation of handoff from Group member 1, research reviews from Group members 1 and 2, research regarding QoS with mobility in WLANs, test and measurements (work of group members 1 and 2), major outcomes from the interpretation of the results, issues and any future tasks.