This is relevant to the troubleshooting of a wireless network because some additional effort has to be put forth to capture the layer two 802.11 information which is required for adequate troubleshooting. These services are provided by different mechanisms of the 802.11 standard.

The air that wireless data is communicated on is a shared medium, and because of that special consideration must be given at the physical and data link layers to ensure that there are no data collisions and that data can be delivered reliably. Wireless networks communicate by sending data over the air as opposed to sending data across a wire. The major difference between the two networking platforms is found at the lower layers of the OSI model.

Wireless networks still use TCP/IP for data communication and abide by all of the same laws of networking as wired hosts. Once the right data is being collected I will discuss different analysis techniques including analyzing WEP/WPA authentication, filtering for encrypted traffic, and finding rogue access points.Īt the packet level wireless networks are similar to wired networks in most ways. I will start by demonstrating methods for actually collecting wireless network packets properly. In this article I am going to discuss useful techniques for troubleshooting wireless security issues at the packet level. That being said, securing wireless networks will continue to be a challenge for the foreseeable future. In a wireless network, establishing connectivity isn’t as simple as plugging in a cable, physical security isn’t nearly as easy as just keeping unauthorized individuals out of a facility, and troubleshooting even trivial issues can sometimes result in a few expletives being thrown in the general direction of an access point. The tricky thing about a wireless network is that you can’t always see what you are dealing with.

Wireshark capture wireless traffic