Favorite Security Tools for Wireless Security

Fyodor, a well-known white hat and author of the port-scanner nmap has for several years taken a poll of the best network security tools. He lists the top 100 on his site SecTools.org. Some are free and some are commercial. They deal with all aspects of computer security.

Here is his site's list of the best tools in the wireless network security category.

1. Kismet (& Kismac for Mac's): Kismet identifies networks by passively watching wireless network traffic. It will even identify hidden networks.
2. NetStumbler: NetStumbler finds open wireless access points. There is also a WinCE version for PDAs named Ministumbler. It is similar to Kismet but is a more active tool.
3. AirCrack: Aircrack is a suite of tools for WEP and WPA cracking. The suite includes Airodump (an 802.11 packet capture program), Aireplay (an 802.11 packet injection program), Aircrack (static WEP and WPA-PSK cracking), and Airdecap (decrypts WEP/WPA capture files). The real meat of this suite is the ability to crack passwords.
4. AirSnort: AirSnort is a wireless LAN (WLAN) tool that recovers encryption keys. It passively monitors transmissions, and computes wireless encryption keys when enough packets have been captured.

We'll cover our recommendations to build your own security tool kit using these as well as other free computer security software, in a later update.

Remember that hackers are already using these tools, so you'd be wise to use them against your own network before someone else does. They may not have your best interests in mind.