Last reviewed 7 min read

Tools & Hardware
Beginner
T1040 T1557

Wireless Testing Tools

Hardware and software tools for wireless security assessments — WiFi, Bluetooth, RF, and beyond.

Information

Tool Selection: Having the right hardware adapter is critical. Not all WiFi cards support monitor mode and packet injection. Popular choices include ALFA AWUS036ACH, AWUS036NHA, and TP-Link TL-WN722N v1.

Wireless tooling stack

The wireless testing toolset grouped by role: attack suites and exploitation, scanning and reconnaissance, cracking and decryption, Bluetooth/BLE, SDR/RF, and the supporting hardware.

WiFi Attack Suites

Aircrack-ng

Suite
Docs

Complete suite of tools to assess WiFi network security including capture, cracking, analysis, and replay.

Installation

aircrack-ng -w wordlist.txt capture.cap

Bettercap

Framework
Docs

Powerful framework for network attacks, MITM, sniffing, and monitoring with WiFi, BLE, and HID support.

Installation

bettercap -iface wlan0mon

Wifite2

Automation
Docs

Automated wireless attack tool for WEP, WPA/WPA2, WPS with Pixie Dust support.

Installation

wifite --kill -i wlan0mon

Airgeddon

Automation
Docs

Multi-use bash script with DoS attacks, evil twin, WPS attacks, and enterprise targeting.

Installation

./airgeddon.sh

Hcxdumptool

Capture
Docs

Capture WPA/WPA2 handshakes and PMKID from access points. Works with hashcat.

Installation

hcxdumptool -i wlan0 -o capture.pcapng

Hcxtools

Conversion
Docs

Portable solution for conversion of packet captures to hashcat/JtR formats.

Installation

hcxpcapngtool -o hash.hc22000 capture.pcapng

Attack & Exploitation

EAPHammer

Enterprise
Docs

Targeted evil twin attacks against WPA2-Enterprise networks with credential harvesting.

Installation

./eaphammer --cert-wizard

MDK4

Attack
Docs

WiFi testing tool for DoS attacks, beacon flooding, deauthentication, and more.

Installation

mdk4 wlan0mon d -c 6

Reaver

WPS
Docs

WPS PIN brute force attack tool for WPS-enabled routers.

Installation

reaver -i wlan0mon -b AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF -vv

Bully

WPS
Docs

Alternative WPS brute force tool with Pixie Dust attack support.

Installation

bully wlan0mon -b AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF -d -v 3

Wifiphisher

Phishing
Docs

Automated phishing attacks against WiFi networks for credential harvesting.

Installation

wifiphisher -aI wlan0 -jI wlan1

Fluxion

Phishing
Docs

Social engineering tool for WPA key recovery with captive portal attacks.

Installation

./fluxion.sh

Scanning & Reconnaissance

Kismet

Scanner
Docs

Wireless network detector, sniffer, and IDS with web interface and extensive protocol support.

Installation

kismet -c wlan0mon

LinSSID

Scanner
Docs

Graphical WiFi scanner showing channels, security, signal strength, and vendor info.

Installation

linssid

Wash

Scanner
Docs

Identify WPS-enabled access points and check for Pixie Dust vulnerability. Ships as part of the reaver-wps-fork-t6x project.

Installation

wash -i wlan0mon

Airodump-ng

Capture
Docs

Packet capture tool for raw 802.11 frames, part of Aircrack-ng suite.

Installation

airodump-ng wlan0mon

Horst

Analysis
Docs

Lightweight 802.11 wireless LAN analyzer with ncurses interface.

Installation

horst -i wlan0mon

Sparrow-wifi

Visualization
Docs

WiFi spectrum analyzer with GPS tracking for wardriving and heatmaps.

Installation

sparrow-wifi

Cracking & Decryption

Hashcat

Cracking
Docs

World's fastest password cracker with GPU acceleration. Supports WPA/WPA2/WPA3.

Installation

hashcat -m 22000 capture.hc22000 wordlist.txt

John the Ripper

Cracking
Docs

Open-source password cracker with WiFi hash support via wpapsk format.

Installation

john --wordlist=rockyou.txt --format=wpapsk hashes.txt

Cowpatty

Cracking
Docs

WPA-PSK dictionary attack tool with precomputed hash support.

Installation

cowpatty -f wordlist.txt -r capture.cap -s ESSID

Pyrit

Cracking
Docs

Python 3 rewrite (Pyrit3) of the classic Pyrit WPA/WPA2 cracker, using GPU and cloud computing for massive speed. Classic Pyrit is retained upstream but is Python 2.7-only and legacy.

Installation

pyrit -r capture.cap -i wordlist.txt attack_passthrough

Bluetooth & BLE Tools

Btlejack

BLE
Docs

Bluetooth Low Energy Swiss Army knife for sniffing, jamming, and hijacking.

Installation

btlejack -f 0x9c68fd30 -t -m

Bluez

Bluetooth
Docs

Official Linux Bluetooth protocol stack. Use bluetoothctl for scanning and management — hcitool and gatttool were deprecated and removed in BlueZ ≥5.48.

Installation

bluetoothctl

Ubertooth One

Bluetooth
Docs

Open-source 2.4 GHz platform for Bluetooth/BLE sniffing and experimentation. End-of-life: Great Scott Gadgets has retired the product and has no plan to manufacture more; the firmware and hardware design remain open-source.

Installation

ubertooth-btle -f

Crackle

BLE
Docs

Crack BLE encryption to decrypt captured traffic.

Installation

crackle -i capture.pcap

SDR & RF Tools

Universal Radio Hacker (URH)

SDR
Docs

Investigate wireless protocols like a boss with signal analysis, modulation, and reverse engineering.

Installation

urh

GQRX

SDR
Docs

Software-defined radio receiver powered by GNU Radio and Qt GUI.

Installation

gqrx

GNU Radio

SDR
Docs

Free software development toolkit for signal processing and SDR.

Installation

gnuradio-companion

RFCrack

RF
Docs

Software-defined radio attack tool for rolling code and frequency hopping.

Installation

python rfcrack.py

Inspectrum

Analysis
Docs

Offline radio signal analyser for visualizing captured RF data.

Installation

inspectrum capture.cu8

rtl_433

RF
Docs

Generic data receiver for ISM band devices (433.92 MHz, 868 MHz, 915 MHz).

Installation

rtl_433 -f 433.92M

Hardware

ALFA AWUS036ACH

WiFi Adapter
Docs

Dual-band AC1200 WiFi adapter with monitor mode and packet injection (chipset: RTL8812AU).

Installation

N/A - Hardware

MycoWave

Driver Installer
Docs

Bash installer that auto-detects kernel, architecture and Secure Boot and selects an RTL8812AU driver strategy (in-kernel rtw88, patched source, Kali DKMS or lwfinger backport), plus a mycowave-monitor-mode helper. Experimental single-author project — review before running.

Installation

sudo ./mycowave-install.sh

ALFA AWUS036NHA

WiFi Adapter
Docs

High-power 802.11n adapter, excellent for long-range attacks (chipset: AR9271).

Installation

N/A - Hardware

TP-Link TL-WN722N v1

WiFi Adapter
Docs

Budget-friendly adapter with monitor mode support (chipset: AR9271). Beware v2/v3!

Installation

N/A - Hardware

WiFi Pineapple

Platform
Docs

Purpose-built pentesting platform for MITM, evil twin, and reconnaissance.

Installation

Web Interface

HackRF One

SDR
Docs

Half-duplex SDR transceiver covering 1 MHz to 6 GHz. Hardware hacking workhorse.

Installation

hackrf_info

RTL-SDR

SDR
Docs

Budget SDR receiver (RX only) for 500 kHz to 1.7 GHz. Perfect for learning.

Installation

rtl_test

Yard Stick One

RF
Docs

Sub-1 GHz RF transceiver for testing <1 GHz wireless devices (RfCat compatible).

Installation

rfcat -r

Flipper Zero

Multi-tool
Docs

Portable multi-tool for pentesting and debugging digital hardware with sub-GHz, RFID, NFC, IR.

Installation

Web Interface

Proxmark3

RFID/NFC
Docs

RFID/NFC research tool for reading, writing, and emulating RFID/NFC tags.

Installation

pm3

The ALFA AWUS036ACH (RTL8812AU) needs a driver before monitor mode or injection will work — the chipset is not mainline mac80211. See the adapter driver write-up for the driver trade-offs, bring-up commands and pitfalls.

Wireless Finding Documentation

When wireless vulnerabilities are discovered on an engagement, document: BSSID, SSID, channel, encryption type, signal strength (dBm), number of associated clients, and exact attack technique used. See the reporting templates section for finding templates and executive summary guidance.

Monitor Mode

sudo airmon-ng check kill
sudo airmon-ng start wlan0
iwconfig wlan0mon
aireplay-ng --test wlan0mon

Scanning

sudo airodump-ng wlan0mon
sudo airodump-ng --band abg wlan0mon
sudo airodump-ng -c 6 --bssid XX wlan0mon
sudo kismet -c wlan0mon

WPA Cracking (hashcat modes)

22000  WPA-PMKID-PBKDF2 + EAPOL
5500   MSCHAPv2 (EAP Enterprise)
2500   WPA-PBKDF2 (legacy)
hcxpcapngtool -o out.hc22000 in.pcapng

WPS Attacks

wash -i wlan0mon              # scan WPS
reaver -i wlan0mon -b BSSID   # brute force
bully wlan0mon -b BSSID -d    # pixie dust
wifite --kill --wps-only      # auto

Deauth

aireplay-ng -0 5 -a AP -c STA wlan0mon
aireplay-ng -0 0 -a AP wlan0mon  # cont.
sudo mdk4 wlan0mon d -b target.txt

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

T1040  Network Sniffing (capture)
T1557  AiTM / Evil Twin
T1078  Valid Accounts (cred capture)
T1110  Brute Force (WPS/hashcat)
T1499  Endpoint DoS (deauth)