A Passive Monitoring System Detecting Connected Devices

Abstract

With the increasing prevalence of daily internet usage, device identification and classifi cation over wireless networks have become highly relevant topics. Most of the wireless network traffic is encrypted. Even though many users feel like that is enough to be secure, this project shows that there is still much information that can be extracted by a passive observer. This project implemented a passive monitoring system capable of identifying devices and classifying their activity without being logged in on the network, only passive monitoring, which makes it almost impossible being detected. The results showed that it was possible to infer certain device characteristics, includ ing mobility patterns, vendor information, and user activity states such as streaming, browsing, or being idle. These findings demonstrate that meaningful insights can be derived solely from metadata, despite the presence of encryption.