How to Hack Wi-Fi WPA/WPA2 Using Kali Linux

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This wikiHow teaches you how to crack (hack) a WPA or WPA2 network password using Kali Linux.

Table of Contents

Prepare to hack Wi-Fi

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You need to understand when we can legally hack Wi-Fi. In most countries, the only time you can crack a WPA/WPA2 network is when the network belongs to you, or the owner explicitly gave you permission to hack.

Hacking the network that does not meet the above criteria is considered illegal and may constitute a crime.

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Download the Kali Linux disk image. Kali Linux is a commonly used tool to hack WPA and WPA2 networks. You can download the Kali Linux installation image (ISO file) by:

Go to https://www.kali.org/downloads/ using a web browser on your computer.
Click HTTP next to the Kali version you want to use.
Wait for the file download to complete.

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Plug the USB into the computer. We need to use a flash drive of at least 4 GB for this process.

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Set USB as boot drive . This step is necessary to be able to use the USB as the installation location.

You can also use a Mac for this step.

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Copy the Kali Linux ISO file to the USB. Open the flash drive, then drag the downloaded Kali Linux ISO file and drop it into the USB’s window.

You need to make sure that the USB is still connected to the computer after completing this process.

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Install Kali Linux. To install Kali Linux on your computer, proceed as follows:

Restart the Windows computer.
Access the BIOS menu.
Set up your computer to boot from the USB drive by looking for “Boot Options” (or similar), selecting the USB name, and moving the drive to the top of the list.
Save and exit, then wait for the Kali Linux installation window to appear (you may need to restart your computer again).
Follow the Kali Linux installation prompt that appears on the screen.

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Buy a Wi-Fi network card that supports monitoring. You can find a Wi-Fi adapter online or in a computer store. The Wi-Fi adapter must support monitoring (RFMON) before you can crack the network.

Many computers have a built-in RFMON Wi-Fi adapter, so you should proceed with the first four steps of the next section before purchasing.
If you are using Kali Linux on a virtual machine, you will need a Wi-Fi adapter regardless of the type of card in the computer.

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Log in to the Kali Linux computer with privileges (root). Enter root username and password to login.

You will need the root account for the whole hacking process.

Hack Wi-Fi

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Open Terminal on the Kali Linux computer. Find and click on the Terminal app with the black frame icon with a white “>_” symbol inside.

Or you can press Alt + Ctrl + T to open Terminal.

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Enter the command to install Aircrack-ng. Type the command below and press ↵ Enter :

 sudo apt-get install aircrack-ng

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Enter the password when prompted. Enter the password you use to log into the computer and press ↵ Enter . Root access will be enabled with any other commands executed on the Terminal.

If you have to open another Terminal window (as we will do in this article), you may need to execute the sudo command with the password again.

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Install Aircrack-ng. Press Y when prompted and wait for the program to finish installing.

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Enable airmon-ng. Type the command below and press ↵ Enter .

 airmon-ng

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Find the monitor name. The monitoring tool name will show up in the “Interface” column.

If you are hacking your own network then the monitor is usually named “wlan0”.
If you don’t see the monitor name here, the Wi-Fi adapter doesn’t support monitoring.

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Start network monitoring. You can proceed by entering the command below and pressing ↵ Enter :

 airmon-ng start wlan0

Don’t forget to replace “wlan0” with the target network name if you hack another network.

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Enable the monitor mode interface. Enter the following command:

 iwconfig

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Exclude processes that return errors. In some cases, the Wi-Fi network card will conflict with the service running on the computer. You can remove these processes by entering the following command: ^{[1] X Research Sources}

 airmon-ng check kill

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Look through the monitoring interface name. In most cases, the monitor interface name will be “mon0”, “wlan0mon” or similar. ^{[2] X Research Source}

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Ask the computer to search for nearby routers. To get a list of routers in range, enter the following command:

 airodump-ng mon0

You need to replace “mon0” with the name of the monitoring interface in the last step.

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Find the router you want to jailbreak. The router name is at the end of each text string; Find the router name of the network you want to hack.

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You need to make sure that this router uses the WPA or WPA2 security protocol. If there is a “WPA” or “WPA2” tag directly to the left of the network name, you can continue; otherwise we won’t be able to hack that network.

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Note down the router’s MAC address and channel number. This information is located to the left of the network name:

MAC address — The range of numbers to the left of the router’s line.
Channel — This is the number (for example, 0, 1, 2, etc.) to the right of the WPA or WPA2 tag.

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Monitor the target network for handshakes. “Handshake” is a term for the process that occurs when a device connects to a network (such as when a computer connects to a router). Enter the code below (remember to replace the required elements in the command with the network information you have)::

 airodump-ng -c channel --bssid MAC -w /root/Desktop/ mon0

Replace “channel” with the channel number you recorded in the last step.
Replace “MAC” with the MAC address that was recorded in the previous step.
Remember to replace “mon0” with your interface name.

Here is an example of an address:

 airodump-ng -c 3 --bssid 1C:1C:1E:C1:AB:C1 -w /root/Desktop/ wlan0mon

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Wait for the handshake to appear. After the line with the tag “WPA handshake:” along with the MAC address appears in the upper left corner of the screen, you can continue.

If you’re not in the mood to wait, you can force the handshake to appear by attacking the deauth before continuing with this section.

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Exit airodump-ng, then open the desktop. Press Ctrl + C to exit, then go to the desktop to check if there is a “.cap” file.

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Rename the file “.cap”. Although not required, this will make it easier to work with the file later. Enter the command below to rename, remember to replace “name” with the name you gave the file:

 mv ./-01.cap name.cap

If the file “.cap” is not named “-01.cap” as in this example, replace “-01.cap” with the actual name of the file “.cap”.

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Change the “.cap” file extension to “.hccax” format. You can do so using Kali Linux’s conversion program. Enter the following command (remember to replace “name” with the filename):

 cap2hccax.bin name.cap name.hccax

You can also go to https://hashcat.net/cap2hccapx/ and upload the “.cap” file to an online converter by clicking Choose File and selecting the file. Once the file is uploaded, click Convert to convert the file and download the new version to your computer before continuing.

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Install naive-hashcat. This is the service that we will use to crack the password. Start typing the following commands in order:

 sudo git clone https://github.com/brannondorsey/naive-hashcat
cd naive-hashcat
curl -L -o dicts/rockyou.txt https://github.com/brannondorsey/naive-hashcat/releases/download/data/rockyou.txt

If your computer doesn’t have a GPU, you need to use aircrack-ng instead.

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Launch naive-hashcat. After installing the service, enter the following command (remember to replace all sentences with “name” with your filename “.cap”):

 HASH_FILE = name.hccax POT_FILE = name.pot HASH_TYPE = 2500 ./naive-hashcat.sh

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Wait for the network password to be cracked. After the password is cracked, the string will be added to the “name.pot” file in the “naive-hashcat” directory; The word or sentence after the last colon is the password.

It can take anywhere from a few hours to several months for a password to be cracked.

Use aircrack-ng on a computer without a GPU

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Download the dictionary file. The most commonly used dictionary file is “Rock You”. You can download it by entering the following command:

 curl -L -o rockyou.txt https://github.com/brannondorsey/naive-hashcat/releases/download/data/rockyou.txt

Note: aircrack-ng will not be able to crack a WPA or WPA2 password if the password is not in the wordlist.

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Tell aircrack-ng to start cracking the password. Enter the command below (remember to substitute the necessary network information):

 aircrack-ng -a2 -b MAC -w rockyou.txt name.cap

If you are cracking a WPA network instead of WPA2, replace “-a2” with -a .
Replace “MAC” with the MAC address you wrote down in the previous section.
Replace “name” with the name you gave the file “.cap”.

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Wait for Terminal to display the results. When the title “KEY FOUND!” It means that aircrack-ng has found the password. The password will be in brackets to the right of the “KEY FOUND!” heading.

Attack deauth to collect handshake

You need to understand what a deauth attack means. The deauth method sends a re-authentication packet to the router you are jailbreaking, causing a disconnection from the Internet that causes the user to log in again. After the user logs back in, you will collect the handshake.

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Monitor the target network. Enter the following command (remember to replace the network information in the necessary places):

 airodump-ng -c channel --bssid MAC

For example:

 airodump-ng -c 1 --bssid 9C:5C:8E:C9:AB:C0

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Wait for a device to connect to the network. As soon as you see the two MAC addresses appear side by side (and the text string including the manufacturer’s name), we can continue.

This indicates that a client (such as a computer) has just connected to the network.

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Open a Terminal window. You can quickly open it by pressing Alt + Ctrl + T . Make sure airodump-ng is still running under the Terminal window.

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Send the authentication packet again. Enter the following command (remember to change the network information in the necessary places): ^{[3] X Research source}

 aireplay-ng -0 2 -a MAC1 -c MAC2 mon0

“2” is the number of packets that you will send. You can increase or decrease it, but be aware that sending more than 2 packets can cause a noticeable security hole.
Replace “MAC1” with the leftmost MAC address at the bottom of the background Terminal window.
Replace “MAC2” with the MAC address on the far right at the bottom of the background Terminal window.
Remember to replace “mon0” with the interface name you specified at the beginning when the computer looked for the router.

An example of a command:

 aireplay-ng -0 3 -a 9C:5C:8E:C9:AB:C0 -c 64 :BC:0C:48:97:F7 mon0

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Reopen the original Terminal window. Return to the background Terminal window after you send the re-authentication packets.

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Find handshakes. Once you see the “WPA handshake:” tag and the address next to it, you can proceed to crack the network.

Advice

Using this method to test your Wi-Fi for weaknesses before launching the server is a good way to guard against similar attacks.

Warning

Hacking someone else’s Wi-Fi without permission is against the law in most countries. You should only do the above steps on someone’s home or Wi-Fi network that has allowed you to check.
Sending more than two reconfirmation packets can cause the target computer to crash and raise suspicion.

Steps