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Mohana Vamsi
Mohana Vamsi

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Aircrack-ng: Assessing Wi-Fi Security

Aircrack-ng is a range of utilities used for penetration testing on WiFi networks. It enables the ethical hackers to discover the weak areas of WPA/WPA2 encrypted security thus making wireless security strong.

Practical Example:
Now, if you are assigned to implement a Wi-Fi audit on a company, assume the following. With Aircrack-ng you can also challenge their password strength.

Start with airodump-ng wlan0 in order to start sniffer process. It monitors Wi-Fi Traffic and gathers handshake packets during connection string attempts.
Use Aircrack-ng to perform a dictionary attack with:

aircrack-ng capturefile.cap –w wordlist.txt  

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The tool tries to resolve the password as per the options existing in the wordlist.txt.

Output: In case the password is compromised to be a simple one, say ‘password123’ you can suggest that the user use complicated and long passwords.

It also assist in identifying misconfigured or rogue access point which is crucial towards creating a secure wireless network.

Tip: Always get a permission to conduct wireless testing. Using Aircrack-ng is prohibited and wrong when performed by any party other than the owner of the network being tested.

Takeaway: Specifically to prevent unauthorized access, frequent password changes, strong encryptions are crucial for the safety of Wi-Fi grounds.

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