My Journey to Professional Pentester

Continuing on from the topic last week, I will continue to explore setting up a wireless adapter to begin wired and wireless hacking. I am still using Kali Linux ( https://www.kali.org/downloads/ ) on a virtual machine loaded on VirtualBox ( https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads ). Additionally, I am using the Alfa AWUS036NHA ( http://amzn.to/2joTI0q ). This post explores three different methods for enabling monitor mode on the wireless adapter. This adapter supports two modes - managed and monitor, respectively. With a device set to managed mode, r eceived packets are only sent to a user's MAC address. T he MAC address is used to ensure that packets are sent to the correct destination. In order to capture all packets within a specific WiFi range - that is, not only the packets sent to a user's device - the wireless card can be set to monitor mode. The first method used airmon-ng. This is a tool within the Aircrack-ng utility that comes installed on Kali Linux. Accordin...

Today I am shifting gears. I decided to introduce WiFi hacking into the mix. Kali in a virtual environment cannot utilize the same wireless card in a host machine. Therefore, the use of  a wireless adapter is required. I found that the Alfa AWUS036NHA ( http://amzn.to/2joTI0q) worked best for my objective. This adapter uses the Atheros 9271 chipset and is compatible with Kali Linux. Additionally, it is compatible with any brand 802.11b, 802.11g or 802.11n router using 2.4 Ghz wave-length, includes a 4 inch 5 ddbi screw-on swivel rubber antenna that can be removed and upgrade up to 9 dbi, and supports 64/128-bit WEP, WPA, WPA2, TKIP, and AES  encryption protocols. The first step to getting the wireless adapter to work in the Kali environment is to install the VirtualBox Extension Pack ( https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads ) if you are using VirtualBox like I am. Once the Extension Pack has been installed, open the settings to the Kali machine installed on Virtu...