
AirMagnet Laptop Wireless LAN Policy Reference Guide
Chapter 3: IDS—Security Penetration
65
A dictionary attack can take place online actively, where an attacker
repeatedly tries all the possible password combinations.
Online
dictionary attacks can be prevented using lock-out mechanisms
available on the authentication server (
RADIUS
servers) to lock out
the user after a certain number of invalid login attempts. A dictionary
attack can also take place
off-line
, where an attacker captures a
successful authentication challenge protocol exchange and then tries
to match the challenge response with all possible password
combinations off-line. Unlike online attacks, off-line attacks are not
easily detected. Using a strong password policy and periodically
expiring user passwords significantly reduces an off-line attack tool's
success.
AirMagnet
Mobile
detects online dictionary attacks by tracking
802.1x authentication protocol exchange and the user identifier
usages. Upon detection of a dictionary attack, the AirMagnet
Mobile
alarm message identifies the user name and attacking station's MAC
address. AirMagnet advises switching user name and password-
based authentication methods to encrypted tunnel-based
authentication methods such as PEAP and EAP-FAST, which are
supported by many vendors, including Cisco.
EAP Attack Against 802.1x Authentication Type
IEEE 802.1x provides an EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol)
framework for wired or wireless LAN authentication. An EAP
framework allows flexible authentication protocol implementation.
Wireless vendors supporting 802.1x or WPA implement
authentication protocols such as LEAP, MD5, OTP (one-time-
password), TLS, TTLS, EAP-FAST etc. Some of these authentication
protocols are based upon the user name and password mechanism,
where the user name is transmitted clear without encryption and the
password is used to answer authentication challenges.
Most password-based authentication algorithms are susceptible to
dictionary attacks. During a dictionary attack, an attacker would gain
the user name from the unencrypted 802.1x identifier protocol
exchange. The attacker then tries to guess a user's password and gain
network access by using every “word” in a dictionary of common
passwords or possible combinations of passwords. A dictionary
attack relies on the fact that a password is often a common word,
name, or concatenation of words or names with a minor modification
such as a trailing digit or two.
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Содержание PRG-Laptop 7.0
Страница 1: ...AirMagnet Laptop Wireless LAN Policy Reference Guide...
Страница 8: ...vi Table of Contents AirMagnet Laptop Wireless LAN Policy Reference Guide...
Страница 30: ...22 Chapter 1 Configuration Vulnerabilities AirMagnet Laptop Wireless LAN Policy Reference Guide...
Страница 64: ...56 Chapter 2 IDS Denial of Service Attack AirMagnet Laptop Wireless LAN Policy Reference Guide...
Страница 136: ...128 Chapter 5 Authentication and Encryption AirMagnet Laptop Wireless LAN Policy Reference Guide...
Страница 138: ...130 Part Two Performance Intrusion AirMagnet Laptop Wireless LAN Policy Reference Guide...
Страница 144: ...136 Chapter 6 Channel or Device Overload AirMagnet Laptop Wireless LAN Policy Reference Guide...
Страница 192: ...184 Chapter 9 Problematic Traffic Pattern AirMagnet Laptop Wireless LAN Policy Reference Guide...
Страница 210: ...196 Chapter 10 RF Management AirMagnet Laptop Wireless LAN Policy Reference Guide...