Wireshark alternative?

wat08

I've tried to view WiFi traffic with wireshark with no luck. I think it doesn't play nice with my wireless NIC. Does anyone know of any other reliable wireless network analyzer? Also, is there an easy way to detect if a public hotspot is currently being sniffed? Perhaps a freeware program that can send traps or something?

dynamik

You might have to pick up another wireless card. There are some chipsets that simply aren't supported.

Sniffing is a passive attack, so there's no way to detect it. Machines that do the sniffing are simply receiving the data that is being sent out.

TechJunky

Are you trying to protect from arp poisening? Good luck to be blunt. If someone has layer 2 access to your network and they want to grab some information they are more than likely going to obtain it.

Arp poisening can be stopped but it requires a lot of overhead administration and frankly isn't worth the time. I just talked about this issue with a friend of mine at ATT who is their IP Engineer and he said they can monitor it, but thats about it.

If you are just trying to monitor wifi traffic, get a card that is supported. There are a bunch out there. Google is your friend. I don't condone sniffing networks on a public forum because it just allows that many more people to find an easy way to hack a network.

Good luck.

JDMurray

Each wireless software tool will only work with specific chipsets (Ralink, Atheros, etc). The more mature tools with a very active support community (like NetStumber and Wireshark) will work with with a wider variety of chipsets. Find out what chipset and firmware revisions Wiresharks works best with on your OS and see if you can find a bargain price for a wireless adapter on eBay. Much of the old, good wireless hacking hardware is no longer manufactured, so I end up I buying most of my wireless stuff on eBay anyway.