Answer to Question #193336 in Computer Networks for Yasir khan

Question

What kind of network related attacks can be possible for university networks? How can we

achieve security to prevent those security loopholes? Share your thoughts.

Answer 1

1) Man in the Middle attacks - An attacker can get in between communication between on student device and the access point in the university and steal information by redirecting the student to a fake logins pages. MITM can also be carried out by rogue students introducing fake access points and and rogue DHCP servers in the university network.

Solution:

Providing basic security education on threats existence of such threats to increase vigilance

The university IT department to implement policies such as DHCP snooping on university switches and routers to prevent introduction of DHCP attacks

2) Deauthentication attacks - Rogue students can use tools such as Aircrack to deauthenticate other students from wireless access points.

Solution

The IT department should implement measures to prevent flooding of the wireless networks. Black list any MAC address of a device that is detected to flood the network with deauthentication packets.

3) Phishing attack - Students might share their emails and phone numbers with other students. Some may use this information for phishing attack

Solution

Create awareness to the students about existence of phishing attacks and not to provide sensitive information such as credit card numbers when called over the phone.

4) Impersonation - Some students leave their social media accounts without logging out after accessing them on university computers. Some other students might find them logged in and use the account for malicious purposes such as posting undesired content using these accounts.

Solution:

Students should minimize logging in to sensitive accounts using university computers and if they do so they should remember to log out after use or use browser incognito mode that logs out immediately upon exiting the browser session. The students should also avoid using the save password option that usually pops up when one logs into an account. If password are saved, they can be later accessed.