-: Wireless Hacking :-
      Wireless networks broadcast their packets using radio 
      frequency or optical wavelengths. A modern laptop computer can listen in. 
      Worse, an attacker can manufacture new packets on the fly and persuade wireless 
      stations to accept his packets as legitimate.
      The step by step procerdure in wireless hacking can be explained with help 
      of different topics as follows:-
      
1) Stations and Access 
      Points :- A wireless network interface card (adapter) 
      is a device, called a station, providing the network physical layer over 
      a radio link to another station.
        An access point (AP) is a station that provides frame distribution service 
        to stations associated with it. 
      The AP itself is typically connected by wire to a LAN. Each AP has a 0 to 
      32 byte long Service Set Identifier (SSID) that is also commonly called 
      a network name. The SSID is used to segment the airwaves for usage.
      
2) Channels :- The stations 
      communicate with each other using radio frequencies between 2.4 GHz and 
      2.5 GHz. Neighboring channels are only 5 MHz apart. Two wireless networks 
      using neighboring channels may interfere with each other.
      
      
3) Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) :- 
      It is a shared-secret key encryption system used to encrypt packets transmitted 
      between a station and an AP. The WEP algorithm is intended to protect wireless 
      communication from eavesdropping. A secondary function of WEP is to prevent 
      unauthorized access to a wireless network. WEP encrypts the payload of data 
      packets. Management and control frames are always transmitted in the clear. 
      WEP uses the RC4 encryption algorithm.
      
      
4) Wireless Network Sniffing :- 
      Sniffing is eavesdropping on the network. A (packet) sniffer is a program 
      that intercepts and decodes network traffic broadcast through a medium. 
      It is easier to sniff wireless networks than wired ones. Sniffing can also 
      help find the easy kill as in scanning for open access points that allow 
      anyone to connect, or capturing the passwords used in a connection session 
      that does not even use WEP, or in telnet, rlogin and ftp connections.
      
      
5 ) Passive Scanning :- Scanning is 
      the act of sniffing by tuning to various radio channels of the devices. 
      A passive network scanner instructs the wireless card to listen to each 
      channel for a few messages. This does not reveal the presence of the scanner. 
      An attacker can passively scan without transmitting at all. 
      
      
6) Detection of SSID :- The attacker 
      can discover the SSID of a network usually by passive scanning because the 
      SSID occurs in the following frame types: Beacon, Probe Requests, Probe 
      Responses, Association Requests, and Reassociation Requests. Recall that 
      management frames are always in the clear, even when WEP is enabled.
        When the above methods fail, SSID discovery is done by active scanning 
      
      
      
7) Collecting the MAC Addresses :- 
      The attacker gathers legitimate MAC addresses for use later in constructing 
      spoofed frames. The source and destination MAC addresses are always in the 
      clear in all the frames.
      
      
8) Collecting the Frames for Cracking WEP 
      :- The goal of an attacker is to discover the WEP shared-secret key. 
      The attacker sniffs a large number of frames An example of a WEP cracking 
      tool is AirSnort ( http://airsnort.shmoo.com ).
      
      
9) Detection of the Sniffers :- Detecting 
      the presence of a wireless sniffer, who remains radio-silent, through network 
      security measures is virtually impossible. Once the attacker begins probing 
      (i.e., by injecting packets), the presence and the coordinates of the wireless 
      device can be detected.
      
      
10) Wireless Spoofing :- There are 
      well-known attack techniques known as spoofing in both wired and wireless 
      networks. The attacker constructs frames by filling selected fields that 
      contain addresses or identifiers with legitimate looking but non-existent 
      values, or with values that belong to others. The attacker would have collected 
      these legitimate values through sniffing.
      
      
11) MAC Address Spoofing :- The attacker 
      generally desires to be hidden. But the probing activity injects frames 
      that are observable by system administrators. The attacker fills the Sender 
      MAC Address field of the injected frames with a spoofed value so that his 
      equipment is not identified.
      
      
12) IP spoofing :- Replacing the true 
      IP address of the sender (or, in rare cases, the destination) with a different 
      address is known as IP spoofing. This is a necessary operation in many attacks.
      
      
13) Frame Spoofing :- The attacker 
      will inject frames that are valid but whose content is carefully spoofed.
      
      14) Wireless Network Probing :- The attacker then sends artificially 
      constructed packets to a target that trigger useful responses. This activity 
      is known as probing or active scanning.
      
      15) AP Weaknesses :- APs have weaknesses that are both due to design 
      mistakes and user interfaces
      
      
16) Trojan AP :- An attacker sets 
      up an AP so that the targeted station receives a stronger signal from it 
      than what it receives from a legitimate AP.
      
      
17) Denial of Service :- A denial 
      of service (DoS) occurs when a system is not providing services to authorized 
      clients because of resource exhaustion by unauthorized clients. In wireless 
      networks, DoS attacks are difficult to prevent, difficult to stop. An on-going 
      attack and the victim and its clients may not even detect the attacks. The 
      duration of such DoS may range from milliseconds to hours. A DoS attack 
      against an individual station enables session hijacking.
      
      
18) Jamming the Air Waves :- A number 
      of consumer appliances such as microwave ovens, baby monitors, and cordless 
      phones operate on the unregulated 2.4GHz radio frequency. An attacker can 
      unleash large amounts of noise using these devices and jam the airwaves 
      so that the signal to noise drops so low, that the wireless LAN ceases to 
      function.
      
      
19) War Driving :- Equipped with wireless 
      devices and related tools, and driving around in a vehicle or parking at 
      interesting places with a goal of discovering easy-to-get-into wireless 
      networks is known as war driving. War-drivers (http://www.wardrive.net) 
      define war driving as “The benign act of locating and logging wireless 
      access points while in motion.” This benign act is of course useful 
      to the attackers. 
        Regardless of the protocols, wireless networks will remain potentially 
        insecure because an attacker can listen in without gaining physical access.
      
        
      
  | 
   Tips for Wireless Home 
        Network Security |   | 
      1) Change Default Administrator Passwords (and Usernames)
      
2) Turn on (Compatible) 
      WPA / WEP Encryption
      
3) Change the Default SSID
      
4) Disable SSID Broadcast 
      
5) Assign Static IP Addresses to Devices
6) Enable MAC Address Filtering 
      
7) Turn Off the Network During Extended Periods of Non-Use
      
8) Position the Router or Access Point Safely