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WEP Cracking for Mac OS X

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the holiday-hacking dept.

Randar the Lava Liza writes "Finally there is a tool to put default Apple AirPort hardware into monitoring mode for wireless security analysis. KisMAC is a variant of Kismet that runs natively on Mac OS X. It requires a special driver to be installed to run the AirPort hardware in monitoring mode, and has built-in WEP cracking tools once enough weak packets have been sniffed."

3 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One of the reasons why after a vulnerability has been discussed an easy to use exploit is a good thing is the tendency of higher-ups to disregard security risks which are only exploitable by a select few. WEP is not what its name suggests, but it is still the only line of defense in many wireless networks because the risk of being attacked still appears to be low. That has got to change.

  2. Re:Great by tbmaddux · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Why go to the bother of making robust cracking software to exploit that particular problem unless you're actually a bad person doing bad things with a computer?
    Such software in general needn't only be used by blackhats. Whitehats can use it to test the security of their own systems.

    In this particular case, it could be used to see how exposed the rest of the internal network is to a lousy security scheme (WEP).

    Besides, these tools already exist on other platforms, so it's not like the blackhats suddenly have something they didn't have before to make our lives miserable.

    --
    Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
  3. Re:Great by sco08y · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yup. If I wanted to make the case that we still need a VPN even with WEP to a suit, it would be nice to actually crack the WiFi network and give them proof. Especially if I could show that someone could just sit outside the building and break it.