I'm beginning a wireless security audit and one of my objectives is to
identify rogue access points and perform a penetration test of the WLAN we are testing. We also
have wireless Blackberry devices which operate on a different frequency. Do you know of Wireless
laptop card and antenna combination that could be used in performing this type of assessment?
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Kate Gerwig, Editorial Director
As far as I know there is no way to assess 802.11 along with Blackberry devices at the same
time. Regarding the 802.11 assessment, you can use a basic laptop with the built-in site survey
software that comes with most. I like the Orinoco software that works with Orinoco cards the best.
Of course, there's NetStumbler which you should use if it supports you WLAN card. There's also
AiroPeek which is excellent or you could take the AirMagnet route as well. If you go with a laptop
solution, you may want to add on a Yagi or some other type of antenna to your WLAN card to increase
your chances of picking up rogue signals.
Blackberries use CMDA, PCS, GSM/GPRS, or iDEN for communications, which are more secure (but not impenetrable) than 802.11. I would focus on the physical security, power-on passwords, malware protection, etc. issues for those devices.
This was first published in November 2003