SNIFF YOUR WIRELESS NETWORK

How to Sniff Your Wireless Network

Imagine This


A hacker jumps on your wireless network and can see the information that is being sent from your computer, such as credit card payments and e-mail passwords, into the “cloud.” This hack allows you to monitor your own wireless network activity through a piece of software.

How it's Done
Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer or packet-capture utility, and while typically used to troubleshoot network issues, it can be also be used as a packet sniffer. Packet sniffers allow you to access any live network stream over a Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection.
Perform this HackGo to www.wireshark.org and download the latest version of Wireshark for Windows. Run the setup program when the download is complete. The program will present you with a list of default settings; select them all, and click Next. Install WinPcap when prompted.
After the installation is complete, run Wireshark from your desktop. Be sure you are connected to the wireless network you wish to monitor. Go to the Capture menu and select the wireless interface from the list

 
You will now start to see packets scrolling down your screen. Test it yourself. With Wireshark still running, open a Web browser and visit your favorite Web site. On our test we visited Chase bank’s Web site, and we saw the URL pop up in the system monitoring. Wireshark will log all of your Web-browsing activity, searched DNS names, and anything else that isn’t encrypted.
Not all wireless drivers and hardware supports packet capture, so there’s a chance yours won’t work. But that won’t stop an attacker, who has made sure his machine works just fine for that.
Prevent this Hack
Karen Hanley, senior director of marketing and membership for the Wi-Fi Alliance, suggests changing the SSID of your network to something other than the router name, so you won’t be tricked by a hacker who might have re-created a connection with a similar name. Also, if your router supports it, make sure you enable WPA2 encryption. Any encryption is better than none, but WPA2 is best because its AES-encryption algorithm is government grade and considered fully secure. That’s why it hasn’t been widely broken.