How I cracked my neighbor's WiFi password without breaking a sweat • Hacker News Board

Re: How I cracked my neighbor's WiFi password without breaking a sweat

#11

Post by chimeracoder » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 4:21 PM UTC

ryanmolden wrote: post #6

>What's more, WPA and WPA2 passwords require a minimum of eight characters, eliminating the possibility users will pick shorter passphrases that could be brute forced in more manageable timeframes Should I point out that 'password' is 8 characters :) Have there been studies done that attempt to test the hypothesis that when forced to pick passwords that meet some arbitrary complexity threshold most common users pick…

Anecdotally, most people I know without secure WIFI passwords pick things like:

- Their address (sometimes with numerals spelled out)

- Their last name

- Their child's name

- single (common) dictionary word

- single (common) dictionary word + one or two digits.

Re: How I cracked my neighbor's WiFi password without breaking a sweat

#12

Post by patdennis » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 4:24 PM UTC

joshuahedlund wrote: post #3

> To his chagrin, it took CloudCracker just 89 minutes to crack the 10-character, all-numerical password he used... > Remarkably, neither CloudCracker nor 12 hours of heavy-duty crunching by Hashcat were able to crack the passphrase. The secret: a lower-case letter, followed two numbers, followed by five more lower-case letters So an all-number password was easily cracked with this method, but a shorter password with…

I'm assuming the ten character all numerical password was a phone number. Phone numbers have discernable patterns, like area codes.

Re: How I cracked my neighbor's WiFi password without breaking a sweat

#13

Post by forcer » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 4:25 PM UTC

Don't really want to hijack this thread so feel free to downvote me if you feel its not appropriate.

We launched a product that protects you from these attacks - more discussion here - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4444478

Re: How I cracked my neighbor's WiFi password without breaking a sweat

#14

Post by pc86 » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 4:35 PM UTC

Am I the only one that's bothered by seeing that red dotted underline for ANonce, SNonce and Ack?

Re: How I cracked my neighbor's WiFi password without breaking a sweat

#15

Post by guilhermetk » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 4:39 PM UTC

>To capture a valid handshake, a targeted network must be monitored while an authorized device is validating itself to the access point.

I think it's a really noob question, but how do you monitor a network if you are not connected to it?

Re: How I cracked my neighbor's WiFi password without breaking a sweat

#16

Post by sil3ntmac » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 4:39 PM UTC

rel wrote: post #2

You know, at the cost of $2,500 per year, (although I can't actually find where to purchase the software) you'd probably be better to just YouTube some kid's backtrack tutorial.

What software are you talking about? CloudCracker?

Re: How I cracked my neighbor's WiFi password without breaking a sweat

#17

Post by sil3ntmac » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 4:40 PM UTC

forcer wrote: post #13

Don't really want to hijack this thread so feel free to downvote me if you feel its not appropriate. We launched a product that protects you from these attacks - more discussion here - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4444478

My review (of wifiprotector.com): dude, this looks like a virus. Spruce up the page! Give me some screenshots! Please, let me trust you!

Re: How I cracked my neighbor's WiFi password without breaking a sweat

#18

Post by coob » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 4:41 PM UTC

guilhermetk wrote: post #15

>To capture a valid handshake, a targeted network must be monitored while an authorized device is validating itself to the access point. I think it's a really noob question, but how do you monitor a network if you are not connected to it?

The same way you tune into a radio station, these packets are in the air for everyone to see.

Many wifi chips can be put into 'promiscuous mode' which allows them to monitor a channel and capture all traffic on it.

Re: How I cracked my neighbor's WiFi password without breaking a sweat

#19

Post by Zenst » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 4:41 PM UTC

guilhermetk wrote: post #15

>To capture a valid handshake, a targeted network must be monitored while an authorized device is validating itself to the access point. I think it's a really noob question, but how do you monitor a network if you are not connected to it?

Its wireless so the same way you can overhear two people talking.

Re: How I cracked my neighbor's WiFi password without breaking a sweat

#20

Post by rvid » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 4:42 PM UTC

You're also screwed if you have WiFi Protected Setup enabled (Its enabled by default in most routers). Once can easily crack a WPA2 passphrase easily in a few hours using a tool like reaver.