TECH2400 Introduction to Cyber Security Report 3 Sample

In this assessment, you will undertake an individual task focused on conducting a comprehensive protocol analysis using Wireshark. Your objective is to thoroughly examine the network protocol traffic captured in the dump file, delving into its various aspects to gain valuable insights. Building upon your analysis, you will create a compelling presentation that not only highlights your findings but also establishes connections to the key concepts covered in class, showcasing your understanding of learning outcome LO1. This assessment serves as a means to evaluate your proficiency in network protocol analysis and your ability to apply this knowledge in practical scenarios. Additionally, it provides an excellent opportunity for you to demonstrate your skills in analysing real-world network traffic and effectively presenting your findings. Furthermore, this assessment requires you to defend your recommendations to diverse stakeholders, which involves articulating your proposed strategies, mitigations, and solutions in a manner that addresses the concerns and priorities of various stakeholders. Moreover, it expects you to contextualise the terminology associated with cybersecurity in a way that is accessible and understandable for diverse stakeholders in the business environment. By effectively communicating the significance of your analysis and recommendations, you will demonstrate your ability to bridge the gap between technical jargon and the practical implications of cybersecurity for different stakeholders within a business setting.

Solution

1. Introduction

Modern-day security threats are numerous and complex, demanding and requiring high levels of security from one’s information technology systems and data. New ways of hacking into networks are invented all the time, exposing a need for security specialists to protect information and systems. Another important instrument for university assignment help within the field of cybersecurity is Wireshark–a network protocol analyser used for the investigation of the traffic stream for threats. The report highlights the key aspects of a cyber event, explains the nature of the identified attack, recommends countermeasures to the attack, and presents a transparent understanding for business executives of what happened.

2. Background

The data used for this study is in the form of a packet capture file, a “.pcap” file obtained from a network event (Špa?ek et al., 2022). The aim is to analyse the captured packets by using Wireshark and provide particular answers in relation to the event. The questions of the survey include the number of packets captured, the destination IP address, the Chrome version used during the event, the request URI, and the number of TCP and HTTP packets.

3. Traffic Analysis

 
Figure 1: Number of captured packets

Figure 1 is the network traffic. This contains information about packets, including source and destination addresses, protocols, and timestamps. The figure indicates a total of 5868 packets.

Figure 2: Destination IP address

Figure 2 shows the specific packet's destination IP address (10.0.0.119), stream index (0), and protocol (Transmission Control Protocol) with a source port of 20.

Figure 3: Chrome version number

Figure 3 indicates that the browser is Chrome, version 91.0.1403.124, and is running on a Safari-based platform (likely macOS).

Figure 4: Request URI

Figure 4 shows the GET request for “image1.jpg”. The request is being sent using HTTP/1.1 and is originating from a browser running on the Windows NT system.

Figure 5: Number of TCP packets captured

Figure 5 shows the TCP packets captured from this dump file are 1497, and the rest of the file is HTTP among the 5868 packers. Each packet is identified by a sequence number, timestamp, source and destination IP addresses, protocol, source and destination ports, and flags indicating the packet's purpose.

Figure 6: Number of HTTP packets captured

The number of HTTP packets captured is 4371 from this dump pact file, and the other is the TCP file whose amount has been mentioned in the previous task. Each packet in Figure 6 is identified by sequence number, timestamp, source and destination IP addresses, protocol, source and destination ports, and the requested URI. The relative percentage of HTTP files to TCP files has been calculated as the percentage of HTTP files is 74.48.

4. Identified Attack

While analysing the level of traffic, the investigation of the .pcap file showed important information about the special nature of the attack (Sharma et al., 2021). From the captured packets, the deduction is that the perpetrated event was a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack. This is a frequent kind of cyber-attack where the attacker gains the chance to eavesdrop and possibly modify the messages exchanged between two parties (Al-Shareeda et al., 2020). These include values in TCP packets that did not conform to normal protocols, distortion in HTTP requests and an unknown destination IP address. Due to the high traffic in the TCP and HTTP protocol, it is possible that the attacker was spying on web traffic while the Chrome browser was used to manage the attack as the client-side software. The request URI and ratio of HTTP packets collected additional information on the nature of the attack, suggesting data interception (Laughter et al., 2021).

5. Defence Proposal

? Two secure socket layers, the Transport Layer Security (TLS) and the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), could be used to encrypt the data that is being transferred across the network (Yuvaraj et al., 2021). This makes it almost impossible for the attacker to understand the contents of the data even if he intercepts the traffic.

? Applying multifactor authentication (MFA) and strong, frequent passwords can minimise the chances of malicious users getting access to systems. Certificate-based authentication can also be used to increase the level of protection before the client and server begin exchanging information.

? Organisations should also use VPNs for secure remote access, which shall also add additional layers of protection against would-be attackers (Nyakomitta and Abeka, 2020).

? There is a need to monitor the network traffic and conduct frequent security analyses. IDS and IPS can be used to alert about insecure activities and to prevent attempts, which are considered potentially dangerous, immediately.

6. Non-technical Explanation

1. The kind of cyberattack recognised was MitM. This kind of attack a cybercriminal launches in between two individuals or organisations that intend to relay information through the internet. Such sensitive details, such as passwords, bank details, or any other private details, could be stolen. These organisations should make sure that they employ a form of calling that does not allow third parties to access the information.

2. Encryption is the process of encoding the information in such a manner that anyone who wants to intercept it shall not understand anything. Things such as having robust passwords and two-factor authentication while logging in are some of the things that delay a hacker.

3. Network audits and inspections periodically guarantee the detection of malicious actions before a break occurs.

7. Conclusion

This report was able to expose the presence of a man-in-the-middle attack specifically towards web traffic. This report ultimately found important details through the utilisation of Wireshark, such as the destination IP, Chrome version number, and TCP and HTTP packet anomalies. The analysis emphasises the dire importance of security measures as well as encryptions through Transport Layer Security and Secure Socket Layer, log-in with two-factor verification, and virtual private network usage. Organisations could also perform persistent surveillance and security audits to identify such attacks. Using these defence strategies explained above, it shall be possible to establish good defences against these threats.

References

Al-Shareeda, M.A., Anbar, M., Manickam, S. and Hasbullah, I.H., 2020. Review of prevention schemes for man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack in vehicular ad hoc networks. International Journal of Engineering and Management Research, 10. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3662935

Laughter, A., Omari, S., Szczurek, P. and Perry, J., 2021. Detection of malicious http requests using header and url features. In Proceedings of the Future Technologies Conference (FTC) 2020, Volume 2 (pp. 449-468). Springer International Publishing. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-63089-8_29

Nooh, S., 2022. Combining encryption and preservation in information security to secure sending a message. International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security, 22(4), pp.285-291. https://koreascience.kr/article/JAKO202213341740831.page

Nyakomitta, P.S. and Abeka, S.O., 2020. Security investigation on remote access methods of virtual private network. Global journal of computer science and technology, 20. https://www.academia.edu/download/82129469/4-Security-Investigation-on-Remote.pdf

Sarkar, P. and Noel, S., 2020. Cipher: Encryption & Decryption. Computer Science & Engineering, 7(10). https://www.academia.edu/download/64796831/IRJET_V7I10123.pdf

Sharma, G., Vidalis, S., Menon, C., Anand, N. and Kumar, S., 2021. Analysis and implementation of threat agents profiles in semi-automated manner for a network traffic in real-time information environment. Electronics, 10(15), p.1849. https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/10/15/1849

Špa?ek, S., Velan, P., ?eleda, P. and Tovar?ák, D., 2022. Encrypted Web traffic dataset: Event logs and packet traces. Data in Brief, 42, p.108188. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352340922003924

Yuvaraj, S., Manigandan, M., Dhandapani, V., Saajid, R. and Nikhilesh, S., 2021, December. Internet of things integrated with multi-level authentication for secured IoT data stream through TLS/SSL layer. In International Conference on Big Data Analytics (pp. 245-258). Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-96600-3_18

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