College Network Security

[prestono99]

I have been getting pretty paranoid surfing on my college network (for good reason) ;)

I have several computers running through a router then connecting to our wired network. I am wondering if someone could do a man-in-the-middle attack between my router and the schools switch/router while their computer is plugged directly into the same network.

This may be a dumb question but I have never heard anyone mention doing an attack between routers so I thought I would ask the smartest crowd on the internet

[Mr-Protocol]

Yes it is possible.

Think of MITM as just impersonating the target node for each side. ARP Spoof should do it easily.

Edited October 5, 2010 by Mr-Protocol

[Infiltrator]

Anyone with the right set of tools can pull this attack. And there are certainly ways to mitigate this attack, you can use (Arpon or ArpWatch) to monitor any changes to your computer ARP table. ArpON is the most advanced one that can detect and block the attack on the spot.

Arpwatch will only detect the attack and alert you.

Edited October 5, 2010 by Infiltrator

[Netshroud]

Depends on how secure the uni has set up their network.

[xtr3m3]

When I was at uni last year, the Internet was absolutely crap. But every now and then, the local Intranet would go down and the speed would increase from 512kbps to around 40mb/s. Also, all ports became unblocked. When I asked at the office, they said it was a result of hackers. After this, I stopped using their Internet, and got a usb mobile broadband dongle.

[Infiltrator]

When I was at uni last year, the Internet was absolutely crap. But every now and then, the local Intranet would go down and the speed would increase from 512kbps to around 40mb/s. Also, all ports became unblocked. When I asked at the office, they said it was a result of hackers. After this, I stopped using their Internet, and got a usb mobile broadband dongle.

Result of hackers, it sounds more like a network storm or a loop on the network. That can happen, when a user doesn't know how to plug the network cable into the right port, all lights on the switch goes crazy, as result the performance of the network comes to a crawl.