Preface

This book is for the reader who wants to understand more about their wireless network, and how to use a software distribution such as BackTrack to be able to survey their wireless environment and select a robust and secure configuration.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Installing and Configuring BackTrack, shows the reader how to install, configure, and customize BackTrack. At the end of this chapter, the reader will have a working and customized BackTrack application.

Chapter 2, Working with the Wireless Card, shows the reader how to work with the configuration and deal with the sometimes challenging task of getting their wireless card to work within BackTrack. At the end of this chapter, you will have a wireless card that works with the tools within BackTrack.

Chapter 3, Surveying Your Wireless Zone, covers how to use the tools within BackTrack and examines the wireless environment around you. You will learn how to identify wireless networks and determine the characteristics of these networks. At the end of this chapter, you will have a fundamental understanding of the components that are visible when surveying your zone.

Chapter 4, Breaching Wireless Security, introduces the reader to the way in which hackers typically break into networks. Within this chapter, you will get to practice some of the more common types of attacks. At the end of this chapter, you will have seen the technique used to crack WEP and WPA.

Chapter 5, Securing Your Wireless Network, shows you how to apply all of the knowledge gained from the previous chapters, and also gives you the opportunity to examine and evaluate the security settings possible for your wireless network. At the end of this chapter, the reader will be able to make the best decisions when it comes to securing their home wireless networks.

Appendix, Wireless Tools, lists a number of tools, with a brief explanation of each tool and links to other resources with respect to the tool.

What you need for this book

A computer with a minimum 2 GB of RAM (4 GB is recommended) is needed. You will also need virtualization software products. The book uses the VMware Workstation; but if you are familiar with others, you can use them. You will require the BackTrack distribution. The steps for its installation and configuration are included within the book.

Who this book is for

This book is for anyone who wants to know more about wireless networks and/or how to secure their wireless networks. The book has been written for readers at a beginner's level, but they should be familiar with networks. For those who have more experience with the software, this book can serve as a refresher and validation of your skill sets.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "Once the machine has booted, you will need to log in with root and a password of toor (root in reverse)."

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

root@bt:~# /etc/init.d/networking start

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "On the Downloads page, you will see a drop-down window that you will use to select the version of the distribution that you want to download."

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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