Security Analysis of Open Source Network Access Control in Virtual Networks

Abstract

Enterprise networks depend on Network Access Control software to restrict access to valuable resources. Significant number of attacks come from internal threats, such as disgruntled employees and infected personal devices brought into the company network. Network Access Control software plays an important role in detecting and protecting against these kind of threats. Most companies maintain huge and complex internal networks that form the backbone of their business and the safe harbor for their intellectual property. Thus, its essential to make sure each machine and user has only the right amount of access to the corporate network. With the widespread use of mobile and IoT devices integrating dynamically to corporate networks, this task gets even more complicated. Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) are heavily employed to securely partition the intranet because of the suitability for a corporate setting. In this paper, we have evaluated the security of PacketFence Network Access Control server, installed within GNS3 network emulator. Using an open-source tool named Yersinia to carry out experiments, we proved that attacks are viable and realistic. We showed different possible ways to attack the PacketFence network along with how to prevent.