Abstract

The Office of Navel Research Network Team actively listened to network traffic to fingerprint transmitted data packets that could potentially affect the availability of resources within the ONR Local Area Network (LAN) segment.  Network traffic was examined using ethereal graphical user interface to identify and analyze Transmission Control and User Datagram Protocol packets to and from end-user hosts and Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) campus intranet servers.  Captured packet frames were decoded to see if a problem exists with a packet.  Capture statements were created to find out what traffic is crossing the network, identify unauthorized protocols, and identify the top talkers.

During the 2004 – 2005 Network Research Program the ONR Network Team limited its research and discovery phase to understanding the various methods to observe, capture, identify, analyze, and decode packets within a packet switched Local Area Network.  To further the analysis of packet capturing the ONR Network Research Team will expand its research and discovery during the 2005 - 2006 program to develop a network diagram to determine the best place to capture traffic for analysis campus wide monitoring during different times of the day instead of once a day two times a week during ONR mentoring sessions.

The development of an active packet monitoring network team can help the ONR network mentoring program strengthen the capabilities of the team members, help the ECSU Math and Computer Science department develop a new course to its program, and/or turnover over the research to the ECSU IT department for them to develop an network analysis vulnerability prevention program using packet analyzers and sniffers.