Kismet is a network detector, packet sniffer, and

intrusion detection system An intrusion detection system (IDS; also intrusion prevention system or IPS) is a device or software application that monitors a network or systems for malicious activity or policy violations. Any intrusion activity or violation is typically rep ...

for 802.11

wireless LAN A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a wireless computer network that links two or more devices using wireless communication to form a local area network (LAN) within a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, campus, or office building ...

s. Kismet will work with any wireless card which supports raw monitoring mode, and can sniff 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11n traffic. The program runs under

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...

NetBSD NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was forked. It continues to be actively developed and is a ...

OpenBSD OpenBSD is a security-focused operating system, security-focused, free and open-source, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by fork (software development), forking N ...

, and

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

. The client can also run on Microsoft Windows, although, aside from external drones (see

below Below may refer to: *Earth * Ground (disambiguation) * Soil * Floor * Bottom (disambiguation) * Less than *Temperatures below freezing * Hell or underworld People with the surname * Ernst von Below (1863–1955), German World War I general * Fr ...

), there's only one supported wireless hardware available as packet source. Distributed under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end user In product development, an end user (sometimes end-user) is a person who ultimately uses or is intended to ulti ...

, Kismet is

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, ...

Features

Kismet differs from other wireless network detectors in working passively. Namely, without sending any loggable packets, it is able to detect the presence of both

wireless access point In computer networking, a wireless access point (WAP), or more generally just access point (AP), is a networking hardware device that allows other Wi-Fi devices to connect to a wired network. As a standalone device, the AP may have a wired co ...

s and wireless clients, and to associate them with each other. It is also the most widely used and up to date open source wireless monitoring tool. Kismet also includes basic wireless

IDS IDS may refer to: Computing * IBM Informix Dynamic Server, a relational database management system * Ideographic Description Sequence, describing a Unihan character as a combination of other characters * Integrated Data Store, one of the first da ...

features such as detecting active wireless sniffing programs including NetStumbler, as well as a number of wireless network attacks. Kismet features the ability to log all sniffed packets and save them in a tcpdump/ Wireshark or Airsnort compatible file format. Kismet can also capture "Per-Packet Information" headers. Kismet also features the ability to detect default or "not configured" networks, probe requests, and determine what level of wireless encryption is used on a given access point. In order to find as many networks as possible, Kismet supports channel hopping. This means that it constantly changes from channel to channel non-sequentially, in a user-defined sequence with a default value that leaves big holes between channels (for example, 1-6-11-2-7-12-3-8-13-4-9-14-5-10). The advantage with this method is that it will capture more packets because adjacent channels overlap. Kismet also supports logging of the geographical coordinates of the network if the input from a

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

receiver is additionally available.

Server / Drone / Client infrastructure

Kismet has three separate parts. A ''drone'' can be used to collect packets, and then pass them on to a ''server'' for interpretation. A server can either be used in conjunction with a drone, or on its own, interpreting packet data, and extrapolating wireless information, and organizing it. The ''client'' communicates with the server and displays the information the server collects.

Plugins

With the updating of Kismet to -ng, Kismet now supports a wide variety of scanning plugins including

DECT Digital enhanced cordless telecommunications (Digital European cordless telecommunications), usually known by the acronym DECT, is a standard primarily used for creating cordless telephone systems. It originated in Europe, where it is the common ...

, Bluetooth, and others.

Usage

Kismet is used in a number of commercial and open source projects. It is distributed with Kali Linux. It is used for wireless reconnaissance, and can be used with other packages for an inexpensive wireless intrusion detection system. It has been used in a number of peer reviewed studies such as "Detecting Rogue Access Points using Kismet".

References

External links