Additional optional hardware
As a seasoned or an upcoming penetration tester in the field of cybersecurity, your arsenal of tools and components is not complete without an external network interface card (NIC) to conduct packet-injection on an IEEE 802.11 wireless network. Each item contained within the list is recommended by the team at Offensive Security for being mostly compatible with standard Android-based mobile devices. These external NICs will allow a penetration tester to execute various wireless attacks, such as the following:
- Eavesdropping, which is listening to a target's wireless network
- Capturing network traffic for later analysis consisting of confidential information that may be passed along the network
- Capturing a WPA handshake for attempting to perform various password-cracking techniques
- De-authentication attacks
Each of the external NICs contains chipsets that allow the Kali Linux and Kali NetHunter operating systems to enable monitoring mode to perform these attacks.
The following is a list of supported external wireless network interface cards (NICs) for Kali NetHunter using Android smartphones:
- Atheros - ATH9KHTC (AR9271, AR7010)
- Ralink - RT3070
- Realtek - RTL8192CU
- TP-Link TL-WN722N
- TP-Link TL-WN822N v1 - v3
- Alfa Networks AWUS036NEH
- Alfa Networks AWUS036NHA
- Alfa Networks AWUSO36NH
- Panda PAU05 Nano
The following is a picture of a TL-Link TL-WN722N wireless NIC:
The Alfa Networks adapters are popular among penetration testers due to their portability and ease of use on the Kali Linux platform. The following is a picture of an Alfa Networks AWUS036NHA adapter, which supports IEEE 802.11 b/g/n standards and speeds of up to 150 Mbps:
