Question

Find wireless pest

Asked by: jaygriz

I am a systems administrator for a small/medium business.  We are located in an office building in a downtown metropolitan location.  The secutity appliance at the center of my network is a Sonicwall TZ170 (Wireless).  I have a wireless "pest" who is constantly trying to connect to the network.   He's clogging up my log and making it useless.  I don't want to resort to MAC "whitelisting" the known PCs, besides this pest will still clog the log even though he's getting denied.   My only alternative at present time is to turn off all logs from "802.11 Management."  One disturbing thing is that this NIC actually recieves an IP address, despite not having the WPA Key.

I'm using WPA-PSK.
Cipher=TKIP

See attached word doc for screenshots of my router's admin interface.

Any strategies for dealing with this (specific to the Sonicwall TZ170) would be appreciated.

On another note . . .

This wireless NIC is not a passer-by.  He is seemingly "always on."  He's always got 88% signal strength, so he's close.  Is there a toll with which I could phisically find him?  Note that I know his MAC address.  I would like to confront the problem that way if feasible

  • Pest.doc
    • 536 KB

    screenshots of my router's admin interface

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Asked On
2008-05-06 at 16:25:52ID23381246
Tags

Sonicwall

,

TZ170 Wireless

,

Find wireless pest

Topics

Wireless Technologies

,

Wireless Local Area Network

,

802.11 Wireless Access Points

Participating Experts
4
Points
250
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: endeffectsPosted on 2008-05-06 at 16:31:56ID: 21511841

are you not able to blacklist the mac adress directly on your accesspoint?

 

by: InnerSelfPosted on 2008-05-06 at 17:24:12ID: 21512193

You can deny his MAC address, and he can always get a wireless pen witch give him another mac and enter anyway again

Your DHCP lease table has him, do change the WPA-PSK password.

 

by: mysticaldanPosted on 2008-05-06 at 18:30:17ID: 21512498

Changing MAC addresses is not an issue so a blacklist wont deny him access. Make sure your firmware for the router is updated to the latest version. A number of utils take advantage of flaws in older versions. He might be sniffing traffic to get more info so make sure the key length is 8 or more characters. WPA2 minimum. Hide SSID and change it making it difficult for him to keep track. Do this on a weekly basis. Given enough time and depending on the timeline for the WPA key it can be cracked as well. Usually people who hack into networks start looking for easier preys when they know you are onto them.

Other than that unlike wired mediums very less chance that you can nail him. However one good point is that a 88% signal strength shows that he should be around 20-25 feet radius of the router(approx.) so that should give you a birds eye view of physical locations. Of course you can move the router in your location to different positions and see where the signal becomes stronger to get a better approximation. Sadly in this case there is no such thing as triangulation.

 

by: oconnork00Posted on 2008-05-19 at 10:29:54ID: 21599783

This could be a small handheld device like an IP phone or something - or a PDA?

Perhaps try sending a mail shot around. The "pest" may have bought a new PDA and doesnt realise he is trying to get access to the network...

Good luck with the find.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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