Passive Wireless Host Detection Using Local RTT Timing Characteristics on an Enterprise Network

Abstract

Wireless network access is a great convenience to users while at the same time can be a burden to network security personnel. This is magnified by the fact that inexpensive wireless access points can be easily installed in a network without the approval or knowledge of network administrators. For this reason, wireless host detection is an essential capability, but remains a very difficult problem. We present a passive method of detecting wireless hosts using a local RTT metric, and perform analysis on an enterprise network. Pre-processing techniques are utilized to remove noise associated with a large network, which is not present in a typical experimental lab environment, resulting in more effective wireless detection capabilities