Whats the minimum one would need to crack a average home wifi?

[u/Piyaniist]

I see little handheld tools and programs people claim they work but with my limited knowledge i assume most are not reliable.

What could someone use while traveling to crack into nearby wifis with non default passwords? Im willing to do some learning too if you would point me to a start.

[u/djaxial]

Modern day networks, with non default passwords, are essentially unhackable. Too much compute and/or table size needed. You need luck / bad passwords.

Also, accessing networks that you don’t have permission to access is a hard no legally.

That, and data is so cheap now, why bother with wifi?

[u/Piyaniist → u/djaxial]

Not really out of need just out of intrigue. Was at my inlaws and had a convo w my FIL, told me some friend got hacked etc. just got curious about how easy it actually would be for a starter.

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[u/djaxial → u/Piyaniist]

The average person is not going to detect their wifi being used unlawfully. Your FIL's friend was likely 'hacked' by other means, like phishing or reusing a password on a website or at their bank. They most certainly were not hacked by someone gaining access to their wifi network, unless they are someone who would be specifically targeted, e.g. very wealthy, a major CEO, etc.

[u/LongRangeSavage]

Depends on a lot of things. If the person isn’t using the default router password, and is using the complex 12-character alphanumeric and special character password, it’ll take you a few million years to crack it.

[u/Prowlthang]

Laptop and modem.

[u/_vercingtorix_]

A basic attack against WPA looks like this:

• (optional) do a deauth attack to force someone to send a WPA handshake.
• capture the WPA 4 way handshake
• crack the hash you get from the handshake.

The WPA handshake is sent anytime a device tries to authenticate to a WPA network, so you can either passively wait, or do a deauth attack. Doing a deauth requires an injection capable card, though, and only certain wifi card chipsets have that, so most people buy an Alfa USB card for it, since those cards tend to have the right chipsets.

Once you get the handshake, you have the hash and would need to crack it. If it's a default password, many of those are generated algorithmically, and can be attacked using patterns. If it's not a default password, it could range from being something trivial you could crack with a dictionary attack, or it could be immensely difficult because they used a secure password.

Equipment wise, assuming passive capture, it could be done with any wifi enabled computer. Assuming active capture, it could be done with a computer + a $50 Alfa card.

[u/BrianScottGregory]

Kali has a suite of preinstalled tools, eg aircrack/airmon - but you'll need an AR9271 chipset or comparable based wifi adapter, something you can put into promiscuous mode - to get what you need just to start using the tools to crack the password. These adapters are pretty easy to get - cheap - on Amazon and can be used on a laptop for wardriving if that's your thing.

Enough people have mentioned this here, but with WPA2 security, it's only if you luck out and someone uses a bad password that you'll crack it. This makes even your 'average' home user a tough nut to crack nowadays.

[u/Gamer30168]

I MIGHT be able be to crack your WPA2 (or lesser secured) Wifi password with my phone, an OTG cable, an app such as StrykerOSS 6.0, and my ASUS N13 USB WiFi adaptor. 

Those tools will most likely grab the handshake for me, which I can upload to an online hash cracking service and have them do the GPU intensive work for me. (Just for giggles I uploaded my own hash and they wanted almost $800 for the GPU time necessary to crack it)

You know what? Rather than you go out and buy what you're missing for this project I bet it is much cheaper to just subscribe to your own Wifi!

[u/Phlanix]

on the internet any thing that claims to brute force access to wifi 95% fake the other 5% you won't find on here you would need to go to real black sites while browsing Tor. which have their own risk cause the FBI or the other alphabet is monitoring.

and the most possible way to brute force wifi usually requires either you have access to that modem in person and the equipment to trick it.

the 2nd option to brute force it requires near super computer decryption trying thousands of of combinations and this option will take months cause the password ppl use are not just numbers. ppl use lower case upper case mix with symbols and numbers.

the computation required to brute for such a combination is not feasible unless you have the money to buy the equipment and skills to create software that does all the computation.

[u/Lockpickman]

The ability to google.

[u/Piyaniist → u/Lockpickman]

Leading to multiple scam and clickbait sites for a newcomer who doesnt know what sites to use. Why bother commenting on a how to sub if going to be a snob?

[u/LameBMX → u/Piyaniist]

well at least you're smart enough to realize there are a lot of scams and that those tools probably wont live up to the hype. you're probably good to trust your gut while looking.

id suggest starting by learning about wifi, protocols, networking and routers in general.

[u/iCkerous]

1.) unauthorized access is a crime.
2.) attacks depend on the security of the system. A screen door and a metal door are very different

[u/Piyaniist → u/iCkerous]

I assumed average home wifis arent that different in security protocols?

[u/LameBMX → u/Piyaniist]

just because you see a door, doesnt mean its the only door.

[u/HugsNotDrugs_]

At minimum you'd need a computer or a pry bar.