WiFi and Security, both are very important factors which generally don’t relate with each other easily. With increasing security concerns, WiFi has become an easy way which can be accessed by everyone. In this article we are going to see on how people can hack your WiFi easily with the help of some well known softwares and tricks. Here we are not spreading the knowledge about the hacking, our main motive is to make you aware of such softwares so that you can accordingly work on securing your WiFi network from these techniques. We will also discuss some tips and tricks for securing your WiFi network.
- Net Stumbler: This software is a free to download and use windows based tool which is used to locate only the networks which are Open. This software also comes with the capability to find the signal or noise levels with a neat overall interface. This can be easily downloaded as it’s a free software tool
- Kismet: Though the name might be bit confusing but this tool surely isn’t confusing. With the help of Netstumblr you can only see the open wireless networks whereas with Kismet you can also see the networks which don’t broadcast their SSIDs so in short it detects and displays the hidden SSID broadcasts. Basically this is an 802.11 layer 2 wireless network detector, sniffer, and intrusion detection system. This one works with any wireless card which supports raw monitoring (rfmon) mode, and can sniff 802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11g, and 802.11n traffic and this one also supports plugins which allow sniffing other media such as DECT.
- Airsnort: Using this software tool which is called as Airsnort you can actually enter the network which is available, as with the tools like Kismet and Net Stumbler you can locate the networks. If a wireless network is open and doesn’t ask for encryption security then you can directly use the network, but if network comes with encryption then Airsnort is required to be used.
- Cowpatty: If a network has a WPA-PSK protection then with the help of this tool you can actually get in to the network as this software which is called as Cowpatty tries different options from the dictionary file and checks whether it matches with a defined pre-shared key or not. If it matches then it gets in.
- Wireshark: So, once you have found the Wireless network and connected to the network, hackers can now sniff the data flowing through the network easily as with the help of this intelligent software tool called Wireshark you can easily go through the network in detail very easily.
Tips and tricks to secure your WiFi network:
Always ensure that you have turned off the broadcasting of your SSID with a MAC level filtering at your router.
Remember to change the default settings of the Router’s web based admin configuration.
If you already use WEP, then make sure that you use a 128 bit one and not a 40 bit encryption key as 128 bit key takes a longer time and efforts in cracking the same. Also, its recommended to use WPA or WPA2 instead of WEP as WPA and WPA2 are both equally secured than WEP.
Most importantly try to keep the key bit difficult and try to avoid setting up a simple to remember passwords like 12345678 etc. as most of the hack WEP code dictionaries are already loaded with the ones which are very normal and general.
If you want to prevent your network from getting sniffed then ensure that you use login data as HTTPS traffic which is sent over HTTPS protocol which is generally encrypted.So, next time when any one sniffs the network, the hacker will only be left with garbled text and nothing else.
