Assessing Security Health of Public WiFi Environments in the UAE

Abstract

In recent years, a noticeable increase has been observed in cyber-attacks that target public networks WiFi. These attacks happen due to the vast use of smartphones and the large amount of data transferred over WiFi. The majority of users tend to trust free public wireless networks for performing different online activities include sending emails, using social media as well as performing online banking, without being aware of whether these wireless networks are safe or have been used as a platform by attackers to launch cyber-attacks. Networks usually implement Intrusion Detection Systems in order to detect any malicious activities. However, it is challenging to apply such a technique in a mobile environment. Hence, low interaction honeypots work as an effective and fast alternative to observe WiFi network threats using smartphones. When smartphones are equipped with honeypots is considered an advanced security monitoring and detection tool that provides the users with an early assessment for the network security health. This research focuses on evaluating the security health of the public WiFi environment using mobile devices. There are many free public WiFi networks available for users in different commercial facilities such as shopping malls, cafes, and airports where users can connect to the internet without any knowledge of environmental security. In this research, most of the vulnerabilities are highlighted and proper solutions were proposed, HosTaGe honeypot-To-Go is selected in this work to be installed and deployed in an Android smartphone, and to study its efficiency in assessing the security of public WiFi networks environment to provide a solution that reduces the vulnerability of the public network.