In this article, you’ll learn how to steal/hack WiFi passwords using social engineering. Social engineering attacks are powerful because they often completely bypass security.
If you can trick a user to enter a password into a fake page, it doesn’t matter how strong the password is.
So, the idea here is to create an evil twin access point (fake network), and then de-authenticate the users from the real AP or router.
When users re-authenticate to your fake AP with the same name, they will see a webpage demanding the Wi-Fi password to enable a firmware update. If they enter the password, you capture it. To demonstrate this attack, I will use a tool called Wifiphisher.
Install Wifiphisher
To install the tool, open a terminal and type:
apt install wifiphisher
This should install Wifiphisher, which you can start by typing “wifiphisher” in a terminal from now on.
You should see a page showing nearby wireless networks. Select the network that you want to attack, and press Enter. I will select “SkyNet”.
Next, the script will ask what phishing attack you want to run. In my case, I will select option 2 “Firmware Upgrade Page”.
At this point, Wifipshisher will disconnect everyone from the real access point, forcing them to connect to the malicious access point.
As you can see in the output above, a client has associated with my evil twin fake network.
No,w when the victim opens his browser, he will get a phishing page to upgrade the firmware, which needs a WPA/WPA2 password for installing a new version of firmware.
The victim may consider it an official notification and go for upgrading by submitting his WIFI password. When the victim enters their password, it will be captured on Wifiphisher as shown below.
Just like that, I have bypassed any password security and tricked a user into entering the Wi-Fi password.
Note: Using social engineering attacks against a victim without his/her consent is illegal.