Senior Design Projects Sniffer Detection

Sniffers are software programs that read every package flying by on the segment, and then - possibly filtered based on a rule set - store the results in a capture file. Sniffers are being used by network administrators and are part of an intrusion detection system, but they also are used by hackers to map a network and capture passwords and email. Current sniffer detection tools are host based or network based. Host based sniffer detection tools try to find a sniffer installed on the host by looking at network connections, rapidly growing files, and other signs of unauthorized access. Network based sniffer detection tries to find NICs in promiscuous mode, chatty sniffers (i.e. those using reverse name look-up for targets), bait-and-trap strategies, and load measurement.

The focus of the project is to test whether load testing still works in Unix, Linux, WinXPPro, etc. and then develop a program that does load testing. In addition, other strategies for sniffer detection should be explored.