How to Crack WPA / WPA2 Security

Normally I don't cross-post information about articles I do for other sites on to my own site, but I think this should be an exception. I was asked to revise an old 2008 article for SmallNetBuilder on cracking WPA / WPA2. I went in full steam and learned as much as I could. Let's just say the results were surprising to say the least. Passwords I had used for years, that I thought were pretty secure, fell in minutes to some of the attacks I ran against them.

I also got to use some pretty cool tools, such as the BackTrack LiveCD distro, which is LiveCD set up specifically for the purpose of network security testing. I got to use oclHashcat-plus, a cracking software which harnesses the power of your GPU for cracking. It's FAST, my older 9800GT Nvidia GPU cracked passwords in 25% of the time it was taking my Q8300 quad-core PC.

Overall it was very eye-opening and I encourage anyone who feels their networks or passwords are secure to read it. You can find it over at SmallNetBuilder.