SECURE LAB SETUP

FOR CYBER SECURITY

Prepared By :

Birju Tank

GTU PG School, BISAG

GANDHINAGAR.

Main Messages

Developing a good cyber security laboratory and related

exercise takes:

Planning

Thought

Resources

Helps to think about goals and structure

Goals

Mixed use laboratory

Not enough space to dedicate to security

Need to be able to connect/disconnect from campus network quickly

Support both Windows and Linux

IUP only supported Linux, real-world environment is heterogeneous

Be able to emulate a real-world enterprise computing environment

Laboratory

One Way to Lower the Cost

Purchase one many-port switch to act as physical switch, all hubs

Can isolate groups of ports

Can bridge groups where needed

Advantages

Significant cost savings

Reduced maintenance need

Disadvantage

Initial setup difficult

Cont’d

Use of Virtual Machines within Physical Machines

Products

Microsoft Virtual PC (used 2005)

Support discontinued for Mac environment in 8/2006

VMWare (used 2006)

Another possibility: Xen

Operating systems must be modified

Higher performance gained

Laboratory – Physical Issues

Want to provide some sense of physical security for each station

Lab furniture is currently 8 cubicles with high walls

Problem: not good for general usage, students tend to “hide” in lab and take over stations

Future: a more open physical environment?

INFRASTRUCTURE

Goals

Heterogeneous and Isolated Network

Same system for each student team

Replicating tool (e.g. Norton Ghost) saves much

time

Don’t forget to give each machine its own identity

Cont’d

Structure of Isolated Network

One zone (all systems off one hub)

Student Team Systems running older Windows

Server, Linux systems

Non-current OSs with known security holes

All tools used in lab exercises

Added several realistic-looking accounts (e.g.

backup, logwd, tomcat) with weak passwords

Cont’d

Structure of Isolated Network (continued)

Several Non-Student Systems

Other variants of Windows and Linux

1 Monitoring system

Additional Available Systems

Host systems can be used for internet access