it's a start

So... I've mentioned the WIFU class a few times now (see the wifu tag below). I've gotten the first wireless card I needed. I still need at least 1 more. I don't have to have another of the same type, but why not? I've got an old desktop I'm going to hook it up on. I haven't started the class yet, but I have started playing around.

Anyway I've tested the usb wireless card in Backtrack4 from the live DVD, in my normal Sidux install on this box (my laptop), and now in the BackTrack4 virtual machine (VM) running on top of my Sidux install.

Tonight, I followed along with the Aircrack-ng tutorials while using the VM with the USB Wifi adapter. I was mostly interested in trying packet injection with the card from the Virtual.

Getting the packet injection to work took some set up. First you have to get the card in monitoring mode, and the test injection had a link to that tutorial. However I don't think it worked every time I tried it from the VM. Sometimes the packet injection would work, sometimes it would fail. I usually had to do airmon-ng stop on both the mon0 and wlan0, then start it again on wlan0 before the injection would work. Annoying but not enough to make me give up.

I was rather excited about getting injection to work, even if it was a bit dodgy. However, I'm not the kind that is willing to leave well enough alone. Since I don't have everything set up yet for the wireless lab I'm building, I decided to jumped ahead to the WPA/WPA2 cracking. (Note I have yet to crack WEP).

I got airodump-ng running on the network I wanted (my U-Verse 2WIRE access point), and could even see the only client (the Sidux install on the laptop, using the built in 3945 wireless chip). However I didn't see any authentication packets in airodump-ng. No biggy, the tutorial tells you how to fix that if you're not patient or only have 1 client.

I was able to deauthenticate the host operating system (Sidux), and even watched was WPA_Gui would reconnect. However airodump-ng never seen the authentication handshake. I tried looking at what was going on with wireshark,and could see the deauth packets going out. But no auth packets. The VM wasn't using the network either.

I'm going to have to get more hardware, I'm ordering the second card this weekend. There are some other things I'd like too... Netbook, desktop, multiple monitors, but that will take longer to get.

I was a little surprised at how easy it was to deauth a wpa/wpa2 connection, and wondering how many people around me are messing with other people by sending deauth packets. I mean after all, I live near one University that has an Information Assurance Program, and the other University I live near is well know for having a great Computer Science / Computer Engineering program. :-)