Testing Wi-Fi security

You can put your Wi-Fi network through its paces using a collection of tools known as Aircrack. The main program, Aircrack-NG makes it clear that you should not protect your network with an outdated WEP key. The tool takes less than a minute to crack such keys. WPA encryption is a lot better, but even this can eventually be broken using brute-force attacks, which Aircrack can also carry out. Therefore, you should always use passwords that are a combination of letters, numbers and other characters— and which are not words that can be found in any dictionary. You know your network is safe only when Aircrack fails! The package is not illegal but its use is certainly contentious. You are on safe ground only as long as you only test your own LAN. Airodump is another practical tool that comes along with the Aircrack suite. It records all traffi c within a network, displays it for you to check, and stores it in a secure fi le.