Ten Free Wireless Hacking Software
There are lots of free
tools available online to get easy access to the WiFi networks intended
to help the network admins and the programmers working on the WiFi
systems and we at Team Techworm have picked the top 10 of those for
ethical hackers, programmers and businessmen.
Internet is now a
basic requirement be it office or home as it is majorly used in
smartphones besides computer. Most of the times people prefer to use
wireless network LAN which is much easier and cost effective.
It
has been observed that the neighborhood WiFi hot-spots are visible on
user’s device however one can get access to the same only by cracking
password with the sole purpose of using free internet. Also in case of
big firms where all the employees are connected through a wireless
network admin might want to keep a check on the network traffic and
hence even they need tools to crack the network.
Vulnerability in
the wireless LAN is majorly due to poor configuration and poor
encryption. Poor configuration includes the case of weak password mainly
done purposefully by the network admin to check the network traffic.
Poor encryption is dangerous as it is related to the 2 security
protocols WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) and WPA (WiFi Protected Access)
and WPA is again of 2 types WPA1 and WPA2, WPA was introduced in 2003
as WEP protocol was easy to crack. The tools used to hack the network is
used either for the
- purpose of sniffing the network : as is the case of network admins and
- cracking the password:
used by programmers to rectify the trouble shooting and by the people
who want to use internet free of cost. It has been seen that based on
this concept there are around 10 tools together which can be understood
to hack wireless LAN.
Aircrack
Most popular
wireless password cracking tool, it attacks 802.11a/b/g WEP and WPA.
This tool manufacturers also provides tutorial for installation of the
tool and its usage for cracking the password. Prior to using this tool
it is essential to confirm that the wireless card can inject packets as
this is basis of WEP attack. This can be downloaded from:
http://www.aircrack-ng.org/
2)
Cain & Able: This tool intercepts the network traffic and cracks
the passwords forcibly using crypt-analysis attack methods. It also
helps to recover the wireless network keys by analyzing routine
protocols. Can be downloaded from :
http://www.oxid.it/cain.html
inSSIDer
This tool has been awarded “Best Opensource Software in Networking” and is a paid software available at a cost of
$19.99.
This is popular scanner for Microsoft Windows and OS X operating
systems and can do a lot of tasks which can be helpful for the admins to
sniff the network LAN. Can be downloaded from :
http://www.inssider.com/
WireShark
This
is network protocol analyzer. So again good for the network admins to
keep a check on the traffic. Basic requirement is that the user should
have a good knowledge of the network protocol only then they can use
this tool. Can be downloaded from :
https://www.wireshark.org/
CoWPAtty
This
tool is an automated dictionary attack tool for WPA-PSK. CoWPatty is
simple to use however it is slow as tool uses the password dictionary
for generating hack for each word contained in the dictionary by using
the SSID. Can be downloaded from:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cowpatty/
Airjack
This is
a Wi-Fi 802.11 packet injection tool. Mostly used to check for the
“man-in-the-middle (MiTm) flaws” in the network and mitigate them. Can
be downloaded from :
http://sourceforge.net/projects/airjack/
WepAttack
This
is an open source Linux tool for breaking 802.11 WEP keys. While
working with this tool a WLAN card is required and basically the tool
attacks working key using the dictionary words. Can be downloaded from
:
http://wepattack.sourceforge.net/
OmniPeek
This
is again network analyzer tool working only on Windows OS. This tools
captures and analyzes the network traffic. The tool can be also used for
trouble shooting. Can be downloaded from :
http://www.wildpackets.com/products/distributed_network_analysis/omnipeek_network_analyzer
CommView for WiFi
This
is for wireless monitoring and protocol analysis. Captured packets can
be decoded by user-defined WEP or WPA keys. This again is mainly used
to monitor the WiFi traffic by the professional programmers, protocol
admins and even at homes. Can be downloaded from :
http://www.tamos.com/products/commwifi/
CloudCracker
This
is online password cracking for WPA protected WiFi networks. It is used
to crack the passwords by using a dictionary of around 300 million
words. Can be downloaded from :
https://www.cloudcracker.com/
Most
of these tools are free; some of them are for protocol analyzers to
monitor the trouble shooting whereas others are for hacking the password
for unauthorized internet access also there are tools which use the
dictionary words to crack the password.
For the network admins and
the professional programmers these tools should be more helpful for
understanding the cracking of password and hence helping them
professionally.
However, one needs to be cautious when using the
tools as this might be an offense to use the tools to crack the
passwords and get unauthorized access to the internet in some countries.
Also such kind of tools are also used by cyber criminals and terrorists
to get easy access for free usage of internet anonymously.
