To simulate a firewall attack using MATLAB that has sequential steps which comprises of designing an attack, which tries to bypass or overload a firewall. Attack techniques could contain port scanning, packet flooding, and IP spoofing to devastate or circumvent firewall rules. This replication can demonstrate how a firewall manages the attack traffic against legitimate traffic, which enabling to calculate the packet drops, latency, and firewall processing loads.
Steps to Simulate a Firewall Attack in MATLAB
- Define Network and Firewall Parameters:
- Configure a target node behind a firewall.
- Describe the firewall rules like port blocking or IP filtering.
- Simulate Legitimate and Attack Traffic:
- Legitimate clients send requests which follow the firewall rules.
- Attackers transmit a combination of traffic, some modeled to bypass the firewall rules like port scanning and others focused at overloading it.
- Firewall Filtering and Processing:
- Make rules to enable or block packets depends on source IP, port number, or packet size.
- Assess firewall performance parameters like packet drop rate and CPU load.
- Visualize Firewall Performance and Attack Impact:
- Monitor performance parameters such as dropped packets, latency, and firewall utilization to know the behaviour of firewall under attack.
Example Code for Simulating a Firewall Attack
Scenario: Port Scanning and Flooding Attack
In this instance, we replicate both a port scan attack (packets sent to numerous ports to discover open ones) and a packet flood attack on a particular port.
% Parameters for Firewall Attack Simulation
simulationTime = 50; % Duration of the simulation in seconds
legitimateRate = 10; % Packets per second from legitimate clients
numAttackers = 3; % Number of attackers
attackRate = 100; % Packets per second per attacker for flooding
portScanRate = 5; % Packets per second per attacker for port scanning
firewallCapacity = 300; % Max packets per second firewall can handle
% Firewall Rules
allowedPort = 80; % Allowed port for legitimate traffic
blockedPortRange = [1, 1024]; % Range of ports that are blocked except for port 80
% Initialize Traffic Arrays
legitimateTraffic = legitimateRate * ones(simulationTime, 1); % Legitimate traffic in packets
attackFloodTraffic = zeros(simulationTime, 1); % Flood attack traffic in packets
attackPortScanTraffic = zeros(simulationTime, 1); % Port scan traffic in packets
droppedPackets = zeros(simulationTime, 1); % Dropped packets
% Simulate Traffic and Firewall Processing
for t = 1:simulationTime
% Generate attack traffic: flooding on blocked port and port scan
attackFloodTraffic(t) = numAttackers * attackRate;
attackPortScanTraffic(t) = numAttackers * portScanRate;
% Total incoming traffic to firewall
totalTraffic = legitimateTraffic(t) + attackFloodTraffic(t) + attackPortScanTraffic(t);
% Firewall processing
firewallLoad = min(totalTraffic, firewallCapacity); % Limited by firewall capacity
% Apply firewall rules: Drop packets that do not meet criteria
if firewallLoad > firewallCapacity
droppedPackets(t) = totalTraffic – firewallCapacity;
disp([‘Time ‘ num2str(t) ‘s: Firewall overload, dropping ‘ num2str(droppedPackets(t)) ‘ packets.’]);
end
end
% Visualization of Traffic and Dropped Packets
time = 1:simulationTime;
figure;
plot(time, legitimateTraffic, ‘-g’, ‘LineWidth’, 1.5, ‘DisplayName’, ‘Legitimate Traffic’);
hold on;
plot(time, attackFloodTraffic, ‘-r’, ‘LineWidth’, 1.5, ‘DisplayName’, ‘Flood Attack Traffic’);
plot(time, attackPortScanTraffic, ‘-b’, ‘LineWidth’, 1.5, ‘DisplayName’, ‘Port Scan Traffic’);
plot(time, droppedPackets, ‘-k’, ‘LineWidth’, 1.5, ‘DisplayName’, ‘Dropped Packets’);
title(‘Firewall Attack Simulation’);
xlabel(‘Time (s)’);
ylabel(‘Packet Volume (Packets per second)’);
legend;
hold off;
% Additional Analysis: Visualize Effective Traffic After Firewall Filtering
effectiveTraffic = min(legitimateTraffic + attackFloodTraffic + attackPortScanTraffic, firewallCapacity);
figure;
plot(time, effectiveTraffic, ‘-m’, ‘LineWidth’, 1.5, ‘DisplayName’, ‘Effective Traffic Post-Firewall’);
title(‘Effective Traffic After Firewall Filtering’);
xlabel(‘Time (s)’);
ylabel(‘Traffic Volume (Packets per second)’);
legend;
Explanation of the Code
- Parameters:
- allowedPort is where legitimate traffic would pass. Other ports in blockedPortRange mimic blocked or sensitive ports.
- attackFloodTraffic denotes the flooding packets targeted at devastating the firewall.
- attackPortScanTraffic designs port scan attempts over many ports.
- Traffic Simulation:
- Legitimate traffic, flood traffic, and port scan traffic are made for each second.
- totalTraffic gathers every incoming packet to the firewall.
- Firewall Filtering:
- The firewall handles up to firewallCapacity, with excess packets are dropped.
- Packets aiming blocked ports or surpassing firewall capacity are calculated as droppedPackets.
- Visualization:
- The initial plot indicates the legitimate, flood attack, port scan traffic, and dropped packets over time.
- After firewall filtering, second plot displays efficient traffic that denoting only the traffic, which effectively passes through the firewall.
Analysis and Extension Ideas
- Latency Simulation: Insert a delay metric to replicate on how latency increases as the firewall turn out to be overloaded.
- Dynamic Port Scanning: Randomize the ports aimed by attackers within the port scan to mimic additional realistic behavior.
- Anomaly Detection: Execute a basic intrusion detection system (IDS) which flags patterns of traffic such as rarely high volumes from the similar IP.
- Rate Limiting and Adaptive Filtering: Launch rate-limiting or adaptive filtering mechanisms to drop attack traffic selectively.
In this manual, we had presented the innovative insights regarding the simulation of Firewall Attack that has simulation procedure and extension project ideas. We will distribute more data regarding this process in further setup.
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