Learning Kali Linux, 2nd Edition

Chapter 7. Wireless Security Testing

It’s not uncommon for computing devices to have no wired connector. The 8-wire RJ45 jacks used for wired Ethernet are gone because the form factor of the jack was just too large to be accommodated in today’s narrow laptop designs, for instance. In the old, old days when we relied on PCMCIA cards for extending the capabilities of our laptops, cards had click-out connectors that could accept the Ethernet cables. The problem was that they were typically thin and easy to snap off. Desktop computers, of course, should you still have one, will generally have the RJ45 jack for your Ethernet cable, but increasingly even those have the ability to do WiFi directly on the motherboard.

All this is to say that the future is in wireless in one form or another. Your car and your phone talk wirelessly. Your car may even talk to your home network wirelessly. Teslas, for instance, require a WiFi connection to download the latest software updates. Thermostats, door locks, televisions, light bulbs, toasters, refrigerators, slow cookers, you name it—​versions of all these products probably have wireless capability of some sort. This is why wireless testing is so important and why a fair number of tools will cover a range of wireless protocols. Over the course of this chapter, we will cover the wireless protocols that Kali Linux supports with testing tools. Keep in mind that the book covers the tools available in Kali Linux, but you may find issues with doing wireless ...