In the last lecture we've learned that not all wireless cards are good for hacking or even though the
card supports monitor mode and packet injection it cannot be used on Linux that runss in a VM. In
this lecture
we'll talk about how to choose the right external USB card and then how to connect that card to
Kali in a VM. Wireless cards supporting monitor mode and packet injection
permit an ethical or black hat hacker to listen on other WiFi conversations and even inject malicious
packets into a network.
Most external wireless cards aren't good at doing anything other than what's required to establish a
basic WiFi connection.
Before buying an external WIFI card that costs between $15 and $50 US dollars
you have to check if the chipset inside the card is good and if the right Linux drivers are available.
If you are in doubts
my advice is to buy the card from a store that accepts returns if it's possible.
Note that the brand is different from the chipset; you'd normally buy a brand like TP-link, Netgear
or Asus and you don't know about the chipset inside it.
The most important is the chipset and the drivers for that chipset, not the brand. To make things
easier for you
I've created a list with chipsets that are known to support packet injection and mode monitoring.
I won't talk about each of them but only about Athereos AR9271 which is a well known
and supported chipset. The Alpha UB adapter is one of the favorites in the hacking community:
it's fast,
long range, well-supported and stable. Or a chiper adapter that uses this chipset is TP-Link.
However check that it uses the Atheros chipset and not another one.
Other considerations in selecting an external Wi-Fi adapter,
aside from the chipset, is the frequency on which the adapter operates. While most Wi-Fi devices,
including IoT devices, operate on the 2.4 GHz band,
many newer devices also offer 5 GHz networks. If 5 gigahertz is important to you
there are many 5 gigahertz WiFi cards that support the monitor mode and packet injection. An example
is Panda Wireless POU09.
This is a very good card that works both with2.4 and 5 gigahertz.
As a conclusion, before buying an external USB WiFi card,
some research is needed!
In the next lecture
I'll show you how to connect to the external WiFi adapter to Kali Linux in a VM.