Constructing Virtual Laboratory for

Research and Education

(Progress Report --- Week 4)

Team members: Melissa Nichols and Nathan Torrez

Mentor: Dr. Anyi Liu
Outline
Timeline
Key Terms
Schedule and Achievement of Week 4
Examining code in-depth
Installing Metasploit
Experimenting with Windows XP and Kali Linux VMs
Automating process of installing CPABE
Fixing XML Importation issues
The Plan of Week 5
References
 Timeline
Week Task
Week One Research the background about the project
Get familiar with CloudLab, OpenStack, and Amazon EC2

Week Two Get familiar with SecureCRT

Get familiar with current Python code
Continue to get familiar with CloudLab, OpenStack, and Amazon EC2
Write the module that can set up different domains using the
OpenStack API and Python (Part 1)
Conduct research on constructing virtual laboratory

Week Three Continue setting up the domains using the OpenStack API and Python
(Part 2)

Week Four Wrap up Domains Construction

Write the module that can change network topologies using

OpenStack API (Part 1)
Start preparing for midterm presentation
We are here
Week Five Finish midterm presentation
Continue working on the module that can change network topologies
using OpenStack API (Part 2)
Key Terms
Metasploit: An open source framework used for generating
exploits to compromise vulnerable systems. Metasploit is a
powerful tool for people who perform penetration testing
and exploit research. [1]
Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption (CP-ABE): An
encryption scheme in which each users private key is
associated with attributes representing their capabilities.
Only users whose attributes satisfy a certain policy can
decrypt a file. [2]
The Achievement of Week 4
Day 1: Day 4:
Examining code in depth
Implementing fix for XML
Continuing to troubleshoot XML importation
issues importation issues
Day 2: Experimenting with Metasploit
Continuing to troubleshoot XML importation Day 5:
issues
Continue
experimenting with
Automating the process of installing CPABE
Metasploit
Day 3:
Finding alternative VM solutions
Continuing to troubleshoot XML importation
issues Finding
alternative SSH client
Installing Metasploit software
Running attack scenario using Metasploit
Automating the process of installing CPABE
Day 1: Troubleshooting XML Importation issues
In order to better understand
the XML importation issues, we
examined our code in-depth to
make sure we fully understood
what was happening
We concluded that there was
no function in the code that
was importing router interfaces,
therefore, we had to write it
ourselves
We continued to troubleshoot
Code evaluation document router interface creation until
Day 4
Day 2: Automating the process of installing
CP-ABE
In order to ensure that
some of the documents
on the VMs are secure, it
is important to install CP-
ABE.
It is important to make this
process as easy as
possible for the user.
Therefore, we created
scripts to automate the
installation process.
Shell Scripts that automate the installation
process
 Day 3 and Day 4: Installing and using Metasploit to
carry out an attack scenario

We used Metasploit[1] to conduct an

attack scenario on our local machine
A victim machine is exploited by an
attacking machine running Metasploit
on a attack network
While we have performed this attack
scenario on our local computers, we still
need to figure out how to run this
scenario in the cloud
We will design and implement a
separate control network that monitors
the traffic and detects the attack
Metasploit running a backdoor exploit
Day 4: Implementing fix for XML importation
issues
We pulled existing code from the
function that uploads router
interfaces and inserted it into the
Create_From_XML function
Currently, this process requires the
user to know the networks that
routers are connected to and
requires the user to input them
Previous network when recreating from XML
recreated from
XML without In the next week, we will remove
router interface
importation
any user interaction with this
process and make it fully
automated
Experiment fully imported including router
interfaces
Day 5: Continue experimenting with
Metasploit and finding alternative VM solutions
Metasploit is a powerful tool with a wide
variety of exploits and payloads, therefore
we are familiarizing ourselves with it and
the other tools we will be using to run our
attack scenario
We may need to use different operating
systems due to SSH limitations with
Windows and size limitations of the cloud
(Kali Linux is a very big operating system)
Our plan is to use a vulnerable Linux
machine for the victim machine and a
lightweight Linux distribution capable of
running Metasploit for the attack machine Screenshot showing Metasploit console-
1639 exploits
Week 5 Plan
Creating our Attack, Victim, and Control network
configuration
Running exploit scenario in the cloud
Researching tools that will help us implement our attack
scenario
Writing code that can change network configuration
Our goal is to detect when an exploit is happening on a
victim machine, and then disconnect that machine from
the network to prevent further spread of an attack
We will then connect that machine to a quarantine
network where information can still be gathered
References

[1] Beal, Vangie. Metasploit. Retrieved from the Webopedia website:

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/metasploit.html
[2] Bethencourt, John. Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption.
Retrievied from http://hms.isi.jhu.edu/acsc/cpabe/