Tethering transparency detects unauthorised NATs

ipoque, a Rohde & Schwarz company, has announced that they have launched an easy-to-integrate software plug-in for network address translation (NAT) detection and mobile tethering transparency suitable for analytics and cyber security vendors. The plug-in in combination with the leading OEM DPI software R&S PACE 2 detects NATing and devices behind the corresponding routing device, as well as the applications used.

Detecting NATing and the devices behind a NATing device is difficult. Routers, wireless access points or smartphones with enabled tethering option map multiple devices to one publicly exposed IP address. Private and public network areas are separated with NAT. Since multiple network devices with their distinct private IP addresses hide behind a single public IP address, network resources can be misused.

Not only does this enable tethering fraud, as subscribers exploit tethering to use mobile internet access for laptops or tablets or to grant secondary users free access to their data plans. It also poses a threat to enterprise environments as unauthorised devices such as personal devices are outside the scope of traditional IT security and are able to create an insecure access point to the internal enterprise network.

With the new NAT/ mobile tethering transparency plug-in, analytics and cyber security vendors can now enhance their solution with cutting-edge IP traffic analytics to reveal devices behind a NATing device and tethering fraud in a specific network. By using such a solution, mobile network operators can detect and bill subscribers for secondary use of their data plans, and IT administrators can secure their networks.

The NAT/ mobile tethering transparency plug-in requires R&S PACE 2. R&S PACE 2 adds IP traffic analytics capabilities to network analytics, traffic management and network security solutions by classifying thousands of applications and protocols and providing content and metadata extraction regardless of whether the protocols use advanced obfuscation, port-hopping techniques or encryption. With no vendor lock-in and thanks to open APIs, both R&S PACE 2 and the plug-in itself are easy to integrate and simple to manage.

R&S PACE 2 and its new NAT/ mobile tethering transparency plug-in will be demonstrated at the RSA Conference in San Francisco in the German Pavilion section, at booth 5671 (North Expo), from February 24th to 28th.