How To Hack WEP wifi Passwords

Hacking WEP wifi passwords

1. Getting the right tools

Download Backtrack 3. It can be found here:

http://www.remote-exploit.org/backtrack_download.html

The Backtrack 4 beta is out but until it is fully tested (especially if you are a noob) I

would get the BT3 setup. The rest of this guide will proceed assuming you downloaded

BT3. I downloaded the CD iso and burned it to a cd. Insert your BT3 cd/usb drive and

reboot your computer into BT3. I always load into the 3rd boot option from the boot

menu. (VESA/KDE) You only have a few seconds before it auto-boots into the 1st

option so be ready. The 1st option boots too slowly or not at all so always boot from

the 2nd or 3rd. Experiment to see what works best for you.

2. Preparing the victim network for attack

Once in BT3, click the tiny black box in the lower left corner to load up a "Konsole"

window. Now we must prep your wireless card.

Type:

airmon-ng

You will see the name of your wireless card. (mine is named "ath0") From here on out,

replace "ath0" with the name of your card.

Now type:

airmon-ng stop ath0

then type:

ifconfig wifi0 down

then:

macchanger --mac 00:11:22:33:44:55 wifi0

then:

airmon-ng start wifi0

What these steps did was to spoof (fake) your mac address so that JUST IN CASE

your computeris discovered by someone as you are breaking in, they will not see your

REAL mac address. Moving on...

Now it's time to discover some networks to break into.

Type:

airodump-ng ath0

Now you will see a list of wireless networks start to populate. Some wil  have a better

signal than others and it is a good idea to pick one that has a decent signal otherwise

it will take forever to crack or you may not be able to crack it at all.

Once you see the network that you want to crack, do this:

hold down ctrl and tap c

This will stop airodump from populating networks and will freeze the screen so that

you can see the info that you need.

**Now from here on out, when I tel  you to type a command, you need to replace

whatever is in parenthesis with what I tell you to from your screen. For example: if i

say to type:

-c (channel)

then dont actually type in

-c (channel)

Instead, replace that with whatever the channel number is...so, for example you would

type:

-c 6

Can't be much clearer than that. .lets continue...

Now find the network that you want to crack and MAKE SURE that it says the

encryption for that network is WEP. If it says WPA or any variation of WPA then

move on...you can still crack WPA with backtrack and some other tools but it is a

whole other ball game and you need to master WEP first. 

Once you've decided on a network, take note of its channel number and bssid. The

bssid will look something like this --> 05:gk:30:fo:s9:2n

The Channel number will be under a heading that says "CH".

Now, in the same Konsole window, type:

airodump-ng -c (channel) -w (file name) --bssid (bssid) ath0

the FILE NAME can be whatever you want. This is simply the place that airodump is

going to store the packets of info that you receive to later crack. You don't even put

in an extension...just pick a random word that you will remember. I usually make mine

"wepkey" because I can always remember it.

**Side Note: if you crack more than one network in the same session, you must have

different file names for each one or it won't work. I usually just name them wepkey1,

wepkey2, etc.

Once you typed in that last command, the screen of airodump wil  change and start to

show your computer gathering packets. You will also see a heading marked "IV" with a

number underneath it. This stands for "Initialization Vector" but in noob terms all

this means is "packets of info that contain clues to the password." Once you gain a

minimum of 5,000 of these IV's, you can try to crack the password.

I've cracked some right at 5,000 and others have taken over 60,000. It just depends

on how long and difficult they made the password.

Now you are thinking, "I'm screwed because my IV's are going up really slowly." Wel ,

don't worry, now we are going to trick the router into giving us HUNDREDS of IV's

per second.

3. Actually cracking the WEP password

Now leave this Konsole window up and running and open up a 2nd Konsole window. In

this one type:

aireplay-ng -1 0 -a (bssid) -h 00:11:22:33:44:55 ath0 

This will generate a bunch of text and then you will see a line where your computer is

gathering a bunch of packets and waiting on ARP and ACK. Don't worry about what

these mean...just know that these are your meal tickets. Now you just sit and wait.

Once your computer finally gathers an ARP request, it will send it back to the router

and begin to generate hundreds of ARP and ACK per second. Sometimes this starts to

happen within seconds...sometimes you have to wait up to a few minutes. Just be

patient. When it finally does happen, switch back to your first Konsole window and

you should see the number underneath the IV starting to rise rapidly. This is great!

It means you are almost finished! When this number reaches AT LEAST 5,000 then

you can start your password crack. It will probably take more than this but I always

start my password cracking at 5,000 just in case they have a really weak password.

Now you need to open up a 3rd and final Konsole window. This will be where we

actually crack the password. Type:

aircrack-ng -b (bssid) (filename)-01.cap

Remember the filename you made up earlier? Mine was "wepkey". Don't put a space in

between it and -01.cap here. Type it as you see it. So for me, I would type

wepkey-01.cap

Once you have done this you will see aircrack fire up and begin to crack the password.

typically you have to wait for more like 10,000 to 20,000 IV's before it will crack. If

this is the case, aircrack will test what you've got so far and then it will say

something like "not enough IV's. Retry at 10,000." DON'T DO ANYTHING! It will

stay running...it is just letting you know that it is on pause until more IV's are

gathered. Once you pass the 10,000 mark it will automatically fire up again and try to

crack it. If this fails it will say "not enough IV's. Retry at 15,000." and so on until it

finally gets it. 

If you do everything correctly up to this point, before too long you will have the

password! now if the password looks goofy, dont worry, it will still work. some

passwords are saved in ASCII format, in which case, aircrack will show you exactly

what characters they typed in for their password. Sometimes, though, the password

is saved in HEX format in which case the computer will show you the HEX encryption

of the password. It doesn't matter either way, because you can type in either one

and it wil  connect you to the network.

Take note, though, that the password will always be displayed in aircrack with a colon

after every 2 characters. So for instance if the password was "secret", it would be

displayed as:

se:cr:et

This would obviously be the ASCII format. If it was a HEX encrypted password that

was something like "0FKW9427VF" then it would still display as:

0F:KW:94:27:VF

Just omit the colons from the password, boot back into whatever operating system

you use, try to connect to the network and type in the password without the colons

and presto! You are in!

It may seem like a lot to deal with if you have never done it, but after a few

successful attempts, you will get very quick with it. If I am near a WEP encrypted

router with a good signal, I can often crack the password in just a couple of minutes.

I am not responsible for what you do with this information. Any malicious/il egal

activity that you do, falls completely on you because...technically...this is just for you

to test the security of your own network. :-)

I will gladly answer any legitimate questions anyone has to the best of my ability.

HOWEVER, I WILL NOT ANSWER ANYONE THAT IS TOO LAZY TO READ THE

WHOLE TUT AND JUST ASKS ME SOME QUESTION THAT I CLEARLY

ANSWERED. No one wants to hold your hand through this...read the tut and go

experiment until you get it right.

There are rare occasions where someone will use WEP encryption with SKA as well.

(Shared Key Authentication) If this is the case, additional steps are needed to

associate with the router and therefore, the steps I lined out here will not work. I've

only seen this once or twice, though, so you probably won't run into it. If I get

motivated, I may throw up a tut on how to crack this in the future.