Hacker-friendly Wi-Fi
Nate Drake guides you through choosing the right wireless device so you can hack with the best of them.
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If you place your adaptor into monitoring mode using Airmon-ng,the tool may change the name of your wireless interface if it’s too long. Double-check this by runningiwconfigafter your adaptor is set to monitoring mode. This will list the new name.
If you want to be a serious ethical hacker, it’s crucial to have the right tools. Chief among these is a USB Wi-Fi adaptor that supports commonly used penetration testing tools such as the Aircrack-ng suite.
The internal Wi-Fi card in your laptop or PC is unlikely to be suitable. Firstly, this is because you’ll probably want to remain connected to your chosen wireless network while you’re engaging in ethical hacking. Your bundled Wi-Fi card also won’t necessarily be compatible with pentesting distros such as Kali or BackBox.
Your first consideration when it comes to finding a suitable Wi-Fi adaptor is whether it supports monitor mode, aka RFMON (Radio Frequency MONitor) mode. This means that with the right software, the adaptor can monitor traffic on a wireless channel without being connected to an AP (access point). This is crucial, as the ability to monitor packets that aren’t connected to your device enables you to carry out network reconnaissance stealthily, in the same way a cybercriminal would.