Book Image

Learning Network Forensics

By : Samir Datt
Book Image

Learning Network Forensics

By: Samir Datt

Overview of this book

We live in a highly networked world. Every digital device—phone, tablet, or computer is connected to each other, in one way or another. In this new age of connected networks, there is network crime. Network forensics is the brave new frontier of digital investigation and information security professionals to extend their abilities to catch miscreants on the network. The book starts with an introduction to the world of network forensics and investigations. You will begin by getting an understanding of how to gather both physical and virtual evidence, intercepting and analyzing network data, wireless data packets, investigating intrusions, and so on. You will further explore the technology, tools, and investigating methods using malware forensics, network tunneling, and behaviors. By the end of the book, you will gain a complete understanding of how to successfully close a case.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Learning Network Forensics
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Laying the foundation – IEEE 802.11


At the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a working group was set up to create specifications for wireless local area networks (WLANs). This slowly evolved into a family of specifications known as the IEEE 802.11 specifications for wireless LANs.

The Ethernet protocol forms the foundation of all the 802.11 specifications.

As investigators who are getting ready to explore the forensics of wireless networks, it is important to develop an understanding of the underlying technology. The 802.11 specifications allow us to gain an insight into data speeds, spectrums, encoding, and so on.

These standards are downloadable and available free of charge from the IEEE website at http://standards.ieee.org/about/get/802/802.11.html.

In a nutshell, the 802.11 specifications are a set of media access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) specifications that govern communications in wireless LANs in the 2.4, 3.6. 6, and 60 GHz frequency bands.

The 802...