Wireless Penetration Testing Services

Know your unknowns through wireless penetration testing to assess, quantify the wireless security vulnerabilities and prepare a risk mitigation approach meant to reduce attack surface.

Get in touch

No salesy newsletters. View our privacy policy.

What is a wireless penetration test?

The term ‘penetration test’ is used to describe the process of hacking into a wireless network in order to discover vulnerabilities. The aim is to find weaknesses (vulnerabilities) and fix them before an attacker takes advantage of those weaknesses.

Wireless penetration testing (or wireless assessment) is an important element for businesses. This could be securing a corporate network, production or guest networks. Businesses need to be aware of the vulnerabilities in their wireless networks and take steps to protect themselves from malicious invaders that may want access to their company’s network or steal data from a corporate network or related assets such as databases.

WIRELESS SECURITY 768x684 1

What is a wireless penetration test?

A wireless penetration test is a security assessment focused on identifying vulnerabilities and weaknesses in a wireless network. This process simulates real-world attacks to evaluate the security of wireless infrastructures, such as Wi-Fi networks.

Common Wi-Fi Security Testing Vulnerabilities

Benefits of Wireless Penetration Test Service

See what people are saying about us

Wifi Security Testing Methodology

Our wifi pen testing methodology is based on the following industry standards that help businesses improve Wi-Fi network security controls from unauthorized access:

  • OWASP Guide
  • NIST 800-115
  • The Pen Testing Execution Standard (PTES)
  • PCI Pen Testing Guidance
Pen Testing Methodology W 768x576 1 1

Wireless Assessment Scenarios

Wireless penetration testing is not the same as wardriving, although the process of wardriving can be used in order to find potential targets. To a small extent, network penetration testing basics are applied in this area.

War Driving (sometimes referred to as wardriving) is a search for open wireless access points by using a portable computer connected to an antenna and a radio receiver connected to an antenna. WiFi networks are detected and their location can be mapped using a database that stores the details of wireless network names and locations mapped against latitude/longitude. Social engineering techniques are not part of standard wireless assessments. To include human elements into black box assessment, wider scopes such as red teaming operations include social engineering techniques.

The best way to find points of weakness is to physically go out there into public places such as parks, hotels, restaurants, cafes etc and look for unsecured wireless access points that are broadcasting without a security key. However, the use of WEP or WPA2 (pre-shared key) based on insecure authentication mechanisms are decreasing incorporate wireless network security usage. More and more companies are adopting certificate-based authentication, therefore, verifying and proving the identity of the client connecting to the wireless local area network. Therefore, white box wireless testing that involves authenticated scenarios is important to know about issues that may otherwise go undetected. It includes rogue access point identification, secure configuration issues such as client isolation, unauthorised network access and data leakage, security found during wireless network tests, endpoint security controls and RADIUS/integrated authentication modules.

Wireless penetration testing is like hacking, and the attacker’s goal is to find weaknesses in passwords, encryption or other security features, access databases and steal information or install malware. Penetration testers have been known to use exploits (known vulnerabilities) as well as using cracking tools such as air crack to access wireless local area networks. It’s important that penetration testers aren’t ethical hackers so they are not trying to protect the company from evil invaders but instead, their job is to hack into every possible weak point in order to find them and fix them before a cybercriminal does it for them.

Dark Shadow

One of the trusted penetration testing companies in the UK

Dark Shadow

How "Defensible" is your firm compared to UK peers?

Most SMBs and mid-market firms have “silent” gaps in their people, process and tech controls implementation. Take the 90-second maturity audit to see your percentile rank.