Wirless network security hacking?

Question

Hi there

I'm a newbie to networking and I do apologise if I've posted in the wrong part of the forum.

What I'd like to do ethically is hack into the wirless network in the hotel where I work, obviously to see wether or not the network is secure

The hotel has just had a pay to surf wireless network put in so guests can access the net with their wirless enabled laptops etc.

Please can anyone show me how to do this and what software I'd need. I'll be using a latop with Windows XP installed.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You

Answer 1

Chances are that the Wireless Network itself is either unencrypted or broadcasts the encryption key, so you don't need to hack the network, per se, what you need to try to do is to hack the firewall controlling Internet Access from the wireless network. The first step to doing that would be to determine what kind of firewall it is, and then seeing if there are any known hacks for it. If done properly, firewalls like this are usually fairly bullet-proof (as far as preventing unauthorized Internet access), and hacking is made more difficult by the fact that very few firewalls are the same, and there is no way of knowing if or what hacking will effect the firewall.

Answer 2

Yes, given enough time. If your SSID is being broadcast then the first part of the security lock is already open. If you are using WEP as opposed to a higher level of security like WPA-TKIP then it is easier. If you are not using a long passphrase (min. 20 characters) then all it would take is time to crack it. Someone with a Bumblebee Wireless network scanner, a laptop and couple of easly found programs could sit within your broacast range of your wireless, and take their time hacking at it till it was cracked. I would recommend; loading a good host based firewall on each PC. The one that comes with XP and even Vista is better than nothing but they are very basic and there is a wealth of info online on how to defeat it. change the IP address of your internal network to something different than what came by default (192.168.blah.blah) every one knows what the default address is and most people never change it! create a long passphrase for your SSID turn off SSID broadcast use WPA-TKIP set your network key to a 40 character passphrase (example: !Th3Qu1Ckbr0wnF0xJuMp3d0V3rTheL@ZYd0G! / !The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog!) a mixture of uppercase, lowercase special characters and numbers makes it harder to crack and the longer it is makes it that much more harder to crack. hardcode the exact amount of available IP address's used or lock down the number that can be dynamicaly assigned. If you only have 2 PC's and a network printer, why do you have 250+ address waiting to be assigned? If you are really paranoid, you can add another layer of security by using MAC filtering. Even with all this done, given enough time and computing power, any password / network key can be cracked.

Answer 3

IF your genuine then well your a rare breed. I would not like to detail information here as it could help you cause mischief or others. I'm not saying you would I'm just covering all angles here. Also think about what your company would do to you if they caught you. Most likely sack you or prison possibly. If they don't know this is what your up to you could be in a lot of trouble.