Sniff Wi-Fi

A Twitter follower asked a while back if I could use the blog to give some tips on using WildPackets OmniPeek. Seeing as how I'm always in need of interesting stuff to write about, I figured I'd give it a shot. Here, then, is a quick look at how to analyze station performance in OmniPeek. There are a lot of metrics that can be used to analyze a station's performance. You might look at whether the station is using high or low rates. You could look at how much channel bandwidth the station is consuming. You should look at how many retransmitted frames are being sent and received by the station. All of these different ways to analyze a station's performance have one thing in common: you have to configure a filter on your sniffer that captures only your station's traffic. The first step of creating such a filter in OmniPeek is to find out what channel your station is on. Start out by finding out your station's MAC address (for my laptop, it's 00:1f:5b:cc:3b...

The CWNP Program gave their CWSP (certified wireless security professional) exam a refresh earlier this year, and I finally got a chance to take the test a while back. I found it to be a good exam that requires deep knowledge of the 802.11i amendment. The CWSP certification is one of three professional level certifications from the CWNP Program. CWNP's professional level certifications require the candidate to pass the CWNA (certified wireless network administrator) exam along with a professional level exam. The three professional level exams are CWSP, CWAP (analysis) 1 and CWDP (design). Currently only the CWSP exam is available, with the other two exams scheduled to be available later this year or early next year. This is the fourth version of the CWSP exam , and in my opinion it is in line with versions two and three of the exam. If I had to give exact ratings, it would be the best of the four versions by a narrow margin over version two.  It is almost unfair to com...