Wireless Communications

The OSWA Assistant is a no-Operating-System-required standalone toolkit which is solely focused on wireless auditing. As a result, in addition to the usual WiFi (802.11) auditing tools, it also covers Bluetooth and RFID auditing. Using the toolkit is as easy as popping it into your computer’s CDROM and making your computer boot from it! This toolkit is a contribution to the wireless security/auditing community and, as the “Assistant” moniker implies, and is designed for the following groups of people: > IT-security auditors and professionals who need to execute technical wireless security testing against wireless infrastructure and clients; > IT professionals who have responsibility for ensuring the secure operation and administration of their organization’s wireless networks; > SME (Small & Medium Enterprise) and SOHO (SmallOffice-HomeOffice) businesses who do not have either the technical expertise or the resources to employ such expertise to audit their wireless network...

Many papers and posts on internet forums have commented on the success of turning normal everyday bluetooth USB dongles ($10), into their more powerful counterparts that allow the capturing of packets from the airwaves. These more powerful USB dongles are usually sold at a much higher price ($10,000) together with the software to drive and control these devices. The problems associated with BlueTooth sniffing You cant simply just purchase the dongle with the alternate firmware. There is next to no real opensource packet capture program for the bluetooth protocol. Hardware & Limitations Chipsets: Whats the difference? The chipset of the Bluetooth USB Dongles are very important. Broadcom chipsets are cheap hardware and are deemed unsuitable devices for this paper. But unfortunalty nowadays, every manufacturer seems to prefer putting these chips in their products compared to the more reliable Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR) chipset. If your lucky enough to find a dongle with a CSR chips...