Campus Network Design and Man-In-The-Middle Attack

Abstract: Security is at the front line of most networks, and most companies apply an exclusive security policy enclosing many of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) layers, from application layer all the way down to Internet Protocol (IP) security. On the other hand, an area that is often not protected with high level of security is the second layer of OSI model and this can compromise the entire network to a diversity of attacks.This report presents an experimental performance analysis within the real environment. It focuses on understanding and preventing the Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) also known as Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) Poisoning on the Cisco Catalyst 3560 series switches with Cisco IOS Software. The Linux Command Line (CLI) tools and Ettercap tool were used to launch the Layer 2 attacks that you might come up against. Mitigation methods to stop this attack are evaluated and concluded. Finally we will answer if Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is enough to protect the users’ data against MITM in the network.A HP laptop and two DELL PCs were utilized for these tests and acted as the attacker, the Server and the victim. Victim PC runs Windows 7, attacker’s Laptop and server run Linux.Finally, three different case studies were analyzed and compared with each other and different solutions that might help to solve or detect the issue of MITM attack are concluded.