Team 14
NetDiscover
CS 426 Senior Project in Computer Science, Spring 2022, at UNR, CSE Department
Members of Team 14
 Gavin Claire: CSE Department, UNR |  Ronald Du: CSE Department, UNR |  Carlos Dye: CSE Department, UNR |
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 Chad Saltzman: CSE Department, UNR |
Instructors
 Dr. Sergiu Dascalu: CS 425 Instructor |  Dr. David Feil-Seifer: CS 426 Instructor |  Vinh Le: CS 425/426 Instructor |
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 Devrin Lee: CS 425/426 Instructor |
External Advisors
 Dr. Engin Arslan: Professor and Researcher emphasis Cloud Computing |
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 Dr. Shamik Sengupta: Professor and Cybersecurity Center Executive Director |
Project Description
NetDiscover, a network utility application, allows users to create and visualize their network through a topological map layout. NetDiscover is a user-friendly, affordable, low-maintenance network mapping tool that small companies and enterprises employ to monitor their networks. NetDiscover is geared toward assisting small businesses which are unable to monitor their networks effectively. NetDiscover provides a simple user interface where clients effectively and efficiently check the health of their network with local network topology construction, modification, and inspection. In addition, users can export the network topology graph along with its associated data table. This allows users to report their network findings in other mediums and import their data at a later time to compare two networks.
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NetDiscover, a network utility application, allows users to construct, visualize, and compare networks in a topological map layout. The goal of NetDiscover is to offer software that is straightforward to set up and use for small businesses that lack significant networking knowledge. The valuable yet concise portrayal of networking information by NetDiscover allows users to address issues related to network maintenance and reduces financial and time costs.
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NetDiscover's architecture consists of a JavaScript, HTML, and CSS frontend with a Python backend that utilizes the Django framework. The features provided by NetDiscover enable small enterprises to effectively monitor changes in their networks. NetDiscover allows users to scan their network devices, as seen. The collected scan information can be viewed in an interactable topology graph and table. Existing topologies can be modified to include additional or edit current information. Network topology information can be imported and exported, allowing topologies to be saved in a JSON file. Finally, two network topologies can be imported to compare their structures, as seen. With NetDiscover's modern design, ease of use, and useful features, all entities can quickly monitor their networks.
NetDiscover is functional; it successfully scans networks and reports the collected data in a visual topographic layout. Users can effectively monitor their networks using NetDiscover's tools to inspect, interact, modify, compare, import, and export the constructed network topologies. Additionally, NetDiscover, as it evolves, has significant commercial applicability and the potential to capture market share as it broadly appeals to most small businesses.
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Cs 425
Project Assignment 1
Cs 425
Project Assignment 2
Project Assignment 1
Cs 426
Cs 426
Project Assignment 2
Project Assignment 3
Cs 425
Cs 425
Project Assignment 4
Cs 426
Project Assignment 3
Project Assignment 4
Cs 426
Cs 426
Project Assignment 5
PROJECT RELATED RESOURCES
Problem Domain Book
Hartpence, B., 2011. Packet guide to routing and switching. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media.
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Packet routing in networking is closely linked to finding a topology by determining the routes of packets. Hartpence discusses how packet routing decisions are made at the router and client levels and addresses the information contained within a packet that determines the route it takes. Furthermore, the book discusses what information is enclosed in a packet that decides the packet routing and destination, information that would be valuable for our development of NetDiscover.
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Project Related Websites
Nmap is an open-source network mapping application. However, it does not generate a visualization and relies heavily on port scanning and pings instead of passive analysis. Despite this, looking at the information that Nmap uses to determine where packets are coming from and going to could be helpful in our efforts to parse packets passively.
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https://www.ciscopress.com/articles/article.asp?p=2756479&seqNum=5
When packets are sent to another network, routers reference an internal routing table to determine where the packet should be sent. For example, if packets are going to a computer on the same network and on the same subnet mask, the device will consult its internal ARP reference to determine which MAC address the packet needs to go to. This website provides information on how network routing occurs.
Networkx is a popular Python library for drawing graphs and is commonly used for graph analysis. This library can be used in the project to help visualize the parsed network topology data and possibly do additional analysis on the data to determine more information about the network.
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https://realpython.com/pysimplegui-python/
PySimpleGUI allows for the creation of graphical user interfaces that work with various platforms and provides an ease of use application that wraps existing packages. This would expedite the process of creating baseline functionalities needed to start up a simple UI and shift the focus more towards associating the code processes with the visual components.
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Technical Reports, Conference Papers, and Journal Articles
Magoni, D. (n.d.). NEM: A software for network topology analysis and modeling. Proceedings. 10th IEEE International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunications Systems. https://doi.org/10.1109/mascot.2002.1167097
NEM is a network topology analysis and modeling program. NEM simulates a fake network topology and then runs analysis on its own simulation, generating a topology map. This would improve the ability to test different types of networks and how our program could respond to a changing network. Furthermore, being that the user has complete insight over the simulated network, any deficiencies within the program could be easily identified.
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J. Akande, A., Fidge, C., & Foo, E. (2017). Limitations of Passively Mapping Logical Network Topologies. International Journal Of Computer Network And Information Security, 9(2), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.5815/ijcnis.2017.02.01
This research article shows that our method of passive network mapping has limitations and explores possible workarounds. Passive network mapping has zero impact on the rest of the network and is also largely undetectable. However, it also comes with limitations, including a limit on which devices can be detected. Furthermore, it is not guaranteed that all packets going from one device to another will pass through the device performing the packet capture, and some devices may not be currently transmitting packets at all.
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News
Hackers Using New Malware Packer DTPacker to Avoid Analysis, Detection
https://thehackernews.com/2022/01/hackers-using-new-malware-packer.html
Demo Video
CONTACT
Inquiries
For any inquiries, questions or commendations, please fill out the following form. You can also contact any of us on LinkedIn and we will respond!