Kismet is an 802.11 layer2 wireless network detector, sniffer, and intrusion detection system.

Kismet will work with any wireless card which comes with support for the raw monitoring (rfmon) mode, and can sniff 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g traffic.

Kismet identifies networks by passively collecting packets and detecting standard named networks, detecting (and given time, decloaking) hidden networks, and infering the presence of nonbeaconing networks via data traffic.

How to install and run: Unarchive, open a Terminal window, go to Kismet's folder and run the following commands from the command line:

./configure
gmake
sudo gmake suidinstall
kismet

Here are some key features of "Kismet":

· Ethereal/Tcpdump compatible data logging
· Airsnort compatible weak-iv packet logging
· Network IP range detection
· Built-in channel hopping and multicard split channel hopping
· Hidden network SSID decloaking
· Graphical mapping of networks
· Client/Server architecture allows multiple clients to view a single
· Kismet server simultaneously
· Manufacturer and model identification of access points and clients
· Detection of known default access point configurations
· Runtime decoding of WEP packets for known networks
· Named pipe output for integration with other tools, such as a layer3 IDS like Snort
· Multiplexing of multiple simultaneous capture sources on a single Kismet instance
· Distributed remote drone sniffing
· XML output
· Over 20 supported card types

Requirements:

· GNU Make (to build from source)

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

· Bug fixes to TCP Async handling and capture IPC, workarounds for broken ncurses on some installs, new no-data options to prevent any logging or processing of data packets, and... zero-priv drone-only operation