MHF How-Tos Episode 6 Show Notes

Disclaimer: The tutorial featured in this episode is purely for educational purposes only. You must not use this tutorial to gain unauthorized access to other wireless networks that you don’t permission to use. You must only use this tutorial on your own wireless network. We cannot be held responsible if you are caught hacking by your local law enforcement agency.so dont do it you have been warned!

This is the first part in our tutorial on how to penetration test your network. This tutorial is for anyone interested in penetration testing. Whether you are a beginner looking to get into this area, or a pro looking to brush up on your skills, then don’t worry, because we have it covered right here. Penetration testing is a tool used to determine just how secure your network really is.

For this tutorial, we recommend using Backtrack, a free, open-source distribution of Linux specifically for penetration testing. Backtrack comes in two flavours, one with the GNOME desktop environment and the other has the K Desktop Environment(KDE). We are using the GNOME version in this tutorial, but if you have the KDE edition, then the steps should be the same. At the time of airing, the latest version available was Bactrack 5 R2.

Now for the theory. First of all, let’s take a look at the different ways which you can secure your wireless network.

Let’s start with WEP. This was the first type of security to be used on any wireless router. However, not very long after it was ratified, it was immediately cracked. WEP came out around 1999, used either a 104 bit encryption or 40-bit encryption key that was typed in by the user on the wireless AP and the users laptop . The fundemental flaws with WEP were it was limited to only 8 characters for the passcode , a weak encryption key as it used RC4 (stream cipher) it sent the message twice, therefore was vulnerable to man in middle attacks (eves dropping on the line) using software such as aircrack-ng. This is why we recommend that you should never under any circumstances use WEP.

The next step up from WEP was WPA,coming out in late part of 1999 which employed an extra level of security.It used a message integrity check. This is designed to prevent an attacker from capturing, altering and/or resending data packets. This replaces the cyclic redundancy check (CRC) that was used by the WEP standard. By 2004 WPA2 was introducted which made use of AES block cipher or advanced encryption standard rather than rc4 used by wep and wpa2.It was built and designed to plug the secutiry holes or wpa2 an wep by imploying the 4 way handshake authentication process this is the current standard used by most modern home routers and wi-fi device in your home today.

A laptop (of course)
An ISO image of backtrack 5R2 from the link in our show notes
If you’re on windows, you will need a copy of imgburn(which is free) to burn the ISO image to a DVD. If you are on a mac, then you will need to use disk utility(which is built into the mac OS)
A couple of blank DVDs, and at under £5 from amazon UK, you can’t wrong. Verbatim 43576 16x DVD+R Lightscribe 4.7 GB (Pack of 10)
You will need a wireless network card(NIC) that will work with backtrack 5. We recommend using the TP-Link TL-WN821N Wireless N USB Adapter
. If you don’t have this one, then you can get one from amazon for under £10 with free shipping.
If you don’t know whether your wireless NIC will work, then be sure to ask around in the Backtrack forums

The first thing you will need to do is to download your copy of BackTrack Linux, you can either download it right from within your web browser, or you can download using BitTorrent.

Having downloaded the image, It’s time to burn that ISO image onto a DVD. Now, you will need to launch your ISO burning program of choice. For the purpose of this tutorial, we are on a Windows 7 PC running imgburn. When it launches select “write image file to disk”. From here a new window should pop up. Now, remember that you downloaded the backtrack ISO image file? you will need to locate it. Click on the icon that looks like a magnifying glass inspecting a folder. From here, you should be find the backtrack 5 R2 ISO file. When selecting your write speed, set the write speed to 4x, this will make sure that the burning process goes successfully. Then, hit the burn button at the bottom of the window.

Once the burning process has been completed, it’s time to put your newly burnt DVD of BackTrack onto your computer and into use. When powering up your laptop, you will need to go into what is known as the bios. You can do this by tapping a certain key on your keyboard. It could be F2, F11, Delete, or something else. This varies between different laptops. In the BIOS, you will find a section where you can change the boot order so that your copy of BackTrack 5 will boot first. You may need to use the page up or page down keys, plus or minus keys depending on which laptop you have. Once you have done that, you can then save and exit out. At this point, you may be asked to press a key to start up from the DVD. You will need to have a quick trigger finger here as you will have a limited amount of time to press the key.

Now, you will come to a menu to the one shown here. When this menu comes up, select “BackTrack Text – Default Boot Text Mode” and press enter on your keyboard. Wait for backtrack to finish loading and you might be asked for a user name and a password. Your user name is root and the password is toor. From there, type in startx. This will take you to the GUI interface for Backtrack 5. This is where you have two options. Either you can run BackTrack as a live distro, that is run it off the DVD without having to install it, or you can install it to your hard drive and always have it on your computer if you want it.

If you do go with the installation of backtrack, then we must warn you that we are not responsible if you accidentally delete your installation of Windows. This is why you would need to make a partition on your hard drive beforehand or get another laptop hard drive and install Backtrack 5 R2 on that. From here, follow the instructions that the on-screen installer provides you with. If you want to install it on a USB Flash Drive, then check out the official tutorial on the Backtrack Wiki. If you want to run it as a live USB or SD Card, then please check out UnetBootin, a free tool for Windows, Linux and Mac.

How would like to make a theme tune for our shows? Just record a funky fresh intro and we might just include it in our next show. Just send us an MP3 of our wonderful creations to mhftechnet@gmail.com

If you have a how to that you want us to do, or any questions, comments or feedback or anything that we have missed, then send us an email to howtos@mhftech.net.