Investigating Vulnerabilities Against DoS in Small Business with Simulation

This study focuses on analyzing the setup of a small business and identifying vulnerabilities that can pose threats to a network as well as giving recommendations on hardening their network system. To be able to have an idea of a small business setup, the researchers conducted an interview with a small business to gain insights on their network setup as well as identify their security measures in place to prevent their internal network from being vulnerable to attacks. Upon conducting the interview, the researchers utilized a virtual environment in simulating a denial-of-service attack. The tools used include Nmap, Wireshark, and Metasploit as primary tools for simulating the attack. The simulation made use of Nmap port scanning to determine open ports (port 135, 139, and 445) which then Metasploit will initialize and run an attack towards the IP address of 192.168.1.15 while Wireshark recorded high network traffic that was led to an increased use of system resources. After successfully conducting this simulation, the researchers recommend the small business owner invest in network security as this can have a negative impact on the business if the reliability of the services that they provide are compromised.