Wireless Networks are predominantly week. Suppose you are wearing your hacker's hat and want to experiment hacking into a Wireless signal/network, where would you start?
Wireless meant to be any communication without physical connection between source and destination like Wi-Fi, mobile networks, Bluetooth, IrDA, via satellite or anything like that. But in general terms when we talk about wireless, mostly it is Wi-Fi which we target to crack, even though other communication channels may also be victims of fraud.
Long time back, I got suspicious that my Wi-Fi at home is compromised and someone is using my bandwidth, since Comcast sent me a text message that I crossed 300 GB. Even when all the device - laptop, security cameras, smart TV, printer, phones iPad at home were switched off, my cable modem used to blink [the data transfer blue light] continuously when connected to Wi-Fi router, I thought someone is using my Wi-Fi router. My Wi-Fi router, I bought from Craigslist, so I thought its software was compromised, I did a little googling and installed dd-wrt via firmware upgrade, still it blinked. I applied MAC filtering still it did; I hide the SSID and changed password to 41characters long, applied WPA-2 personal, still it did. For one month we survived only on direct connection from cable modem to single device, either TV or laptop when used, no Wi-Fi at home at all. Later I realized the culprit is smart TV and netflix, so ignored the blinking of cable modem henceforth.
And now this discussion makes me think, all measures I took to secure Wi-Fi were not full proof and even the mac address can be spoofed!!! hfff….
To break-in Wi-Fi, I must have a virtual or actual target, if this is a virtual target [created by me], half of the story is worthless, and the moment I am 100% sure about underlying mechanism used to secure a Wi-Fi network, half of the battle is done. Tools like Kismet and NetStumbler [page 728 Shon Harris] could help understand what the Wi-Fi is broadcasted from, what’s the underlying technology used. After that I have tools like AirSnort and WEP-Crack [page 719, 728 Shon Harris]. aircrack-ng included in backTrack, cowpatty or reaver are some other tools that may be used.
But before starting using these tools I must be aware of basic terms and technologies ( like network standards, how Wi-Fi actually works, WEP, WPA2-PSK, WPA2-AES, channels and which channels can be used for rogue access points and so on), what may be the physical tools required ( like Wi-Fi adapters, Attennas or simply a routed mobile device !!), and last but not the least - make sure the tools I am planning to use or downloaded "FREE" are not backdoors to my test machine.
References
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