Conducting Wireless Network Penetration Test

When to Use

• Assessing the security of enterprise wireless networks including guest, corporate, and IoT WiFi segments
• Testing whether attackers within physical proximity can compromise wireless authentication and access internal networks
• Validating wireless intrusion detection/prevention system (WIDS/WIPS) capabilities against known attack techniques
• Evaluating the effectiveness of WPA3 migration and transition mode configurations
• Testing network segmentation between wireless and wired networks after a wireless network compromise

Do not use against wireless networks without written authorization from the network owner, for jamming or denial-of-service attacks against wireless infrastructure unless explicitly authorized, or in environments where wireless disruption could affect life-safety systems.

Prerequisites

• Written authorization specifying target SSIDs, BSSIDs, and physical testing locations
• External WiFi adapter supporting monitor mode and packet injection (Alfa AWUS036ACH, TP-Link TL-WN722N v1)
• Kali Linux or equivalent with up-to-date wireless tools (aircrack-ng suite, hostapd, bettercap)
• Physical access to the testing location during authorized testing hours
• Knowledge of the target's wireless architecture (SSIDs, authentication types, RADIUS infrastructure)

Workflow

Step 1: Wireless Reconnaissance

Discover and map all wireless networks in the target environment:

• Enable monitor mode: airmon-ng start wlan0
• Capture wireless traffic: airodump-ng wlan0mon -w recon --output-format csv,pcap to discover all SSIDs, BSSIDs, channels, encryption types, and connected clients
• Identify target networks from the authorized scope and note their security configurations (WEP, WPA2-Personal, WPA2-Enterprise, WPA3-SAE, WPA3-Transition)
• Enumerate connected clients and their signal strengths to understand client distribution
• Check for hidden SSIDs by capturing probe requests from clients: airodump-ng wlan0mon --essid-regex ".*" -c <channel>
• Identify rogue access points by comparing discovered BSSIDs against the client's authorized AP inventory

Step 2: WPA2-Personal Handshake Capture and Cracking

For WPA2-PSK networks, capture the 4-way handshake and attempt offline cracking:

• Target the specific AP: airodump-ng wlan0mon -c <channel> --bssid <bssid> -w capture
• Deauthenticate a connected client to force re-authentication: aireplay-ng -0 5 -a <bssid> -c <client_mac> wlan0mon
• Verify handshake capture in airodump-ng (WPA handshake indicator appears)
• Crack the captured handshake:
  • Dictionary attack: aircrack-ng -w /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt capture-01.cap
  • GPU-accelerated: hashcat -m 22000 capture.hc22000 /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt
  • Rule-based: hashcat -m 22000 capture.hc22000 wordlist.txt -r /usr/share/hashcat/rules/best64.rule
• For PMKID capture (clientless): hcxdumptool -i wlan0mon --enable_status=1 -o pmkid.pcapng --filtermode=2 --filterlist_ap=<bssid>

Step 3: WPA2-Enterprise Attack

For 802.1X/EAP networks, attempt credential capture through rogue RADIUS:

• Identify the EAP type in use (PEAP-MSCHAPv2, EAP-TLS, EAP-TTLS) by capturing association requests
• Set up a rogue AP mimicking the enterprise SSID using hostapd-mana with a rogue RADIUS server
• Configure hostapd-mana to accept all EAP authentication attempts and capture RADIUS handshakes
• When clients connect to the rogue AP, capture MSCHAPv2 challenge-response pairs
• Crack captured credentials with asleap or convert to hashcat format: hashcat -m 5500 captured_ntlm.txt wordlist.txt
• If EAP-TLS is in use (certificate-based), document that credential capture is not feasible and the organization has implemented strong wireless authentication

Step 4: Evil Twin Attack

Deploy a rogue access point to intercept client connections:

• Create an evil twin AP matching the target SSID: configure hostapd with the same SSID and channel
• Set up a captive portal using dnsmasq for DHCP and DNS, and a web server presenting a fake login page
• Deauthenticate clients from the legitimate AP to force reconnection to the evil twin
• Capture credentials submitted through the captive portal
• For WPA3-Transition mode networks: exploit the downgrade vulnerability by creating a WPA2-only evil twin that transition-mode clients will connect to

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