People go to coffee shops like Starbucks or Peets for many reasons. For me, personally, it is for an overpriced cappuccino that tells the world I am an important guy and probably work on really lucrative projects.
That’s just me? OK then…
Besides ego boosts, a major reason people go to coffee shops is the free WiFi that students, writers, and countless other individuals use for convenience. For cybersecurity pros, public WiFi is a place we like to avoid. The possibility for malware infection and Man-in-The-Middle attacks are enough to keep us away from such networks.
Let’s imagine for a second, however, that you are an up-and-coming black-hat hacker. You want to do more than vandalize websites with ASCII drawings or hack your buddies on Facebook and change their relationship status to 10 years of being married to a goat. You want to do something that impresses your script-kiddie pals on IRC; something that says you have actual skill.
Packet sniffing undetected on a network may just be that thing do it.
This leads us back to the coffee shop WiFi. Today, you decide on Starbucks since the Pumpkin Spice Latte is now available. With how easy it is to simply gain access to the network, there isn’t a ton of hacking to be done. All you do is, according to the company’s official website, “select ‘Google Starbucks’ WiFi network, open a browser and click ‘Accept & Connect.’ Then you’re… ready to enjoy fast WiFi with your coffee.” Thankfully, the store is full of people just waiting to be cyber casualties via public WiFi. Places like Starbucks do not require a password for their WiFi, but even if they did and were running WPA-2 certifications, passive actions like packet sniffing can still yield results. Any traffic that is unencrypted (which is likely to be a great deal) will be captured by Wireshark.
Once you’re in, let’s say you want to do that thing called packet sniffing. First, you understand it’s illegal and you could go to prison for stealing data, but hey who cares about that? You want to be a 1337 h4x0r like in the movies. So to start your journey of hacking the planet, pull up everybody’s favorite sniffer, Wireshark. Since you have not discovered the beauty of Kali Linux yet, and because this hypothetical situation is made easier with it, you are using the Windows GUI version of Wireshark.
What you want to do is make sure that your version is the most up-to-date, which is 4.1.2, as other versions may be buggy. Running this packet sniffer is a bit of a pain on Windows, as you will find yourself limited to certain modes as others may require additional hardware to work properly. In any case, you can absolutely collect data packets using just the Windows version of Wireshark on a WLAN.
So you sit down with your latte and open Wireshark. The first thing you are going to want to do is go to the tab that says “capture” and select “options.” A window called “capture interfaces” will pop up, and at the bottom you will see the words “capture all packets in promiscuous mode.” Make sure the box next to it is checked as promiscuous mode ensures your interface will receive any packet sent, rather than just those intended for it.
The actual packet capture process is ready to commence. Hit the “start” button with the “wireless network connection” option selected and watch all the data be captured by Wireshark. This is the easy part. The hard part comes later. When you feel that you have been running the packet capture long enough, simply hit the red square at the top of the page to stop the sniffing.
Now here comes the difficult part. You likely have a gold mine of data, possibly even passwords thanks to the unencrypted traffic, from the unknowing Starbucks’ patrons. The problem is, you are going to now have to sift through a ton of data packets to find something interesting. Thankfully, Wireshark makes it simple to isolate the type of data that you are looking for. To view these options, select the “analyze” tab and from the drop-down menu select “display filters.”
A tab will pop up with your options to enter into the bar that says “apply a display filter.” Start entering different filters into the white text bar that says “apply a display filter” and see what kind of data you captured. If you are lucky enough, there will be some rather juicy data that you can use against an individual in the coffee shop. Things like user names and passwords (even hashed ones that are easily decrypted by free services on the Internet) are obviously the holy grail, but be on the lookout for anything in plain text that can be useful. Not every website uses HTTPS, and if you get someone signing in on an HTTP site, you are likely going to get some great data.
Let’s say you get lucky and get somebody’s username/password combination by searching for POST submissions, or at least something that looks like it. With a simple search of the IP address listed in the “destination” column, you may very well have scored your first hack. After a bit of decryption, which is easily accessible from the Internet, you have a password that is fully ready to use.
Congrats, you will probably get arrested some day, but at least you can brag about this to your buddies in IRC. I look forward as a cybersecurity guy to bringing you down someday when you inevitably join Lizard Squad or some other collective. For now, finish that Pumpkin Spice Latte and walk out of Starbucks with the knowledge that you just hacked someone’s account thanks to Wireshark.
As you finish this article you are probably thinking, “Derek, you are a cybersecurity guy, why the hell are you teaching up-and-coming bad guys how to hurt innocent people?” Two main reasons. The first is to illustrate just how vulnerable any person can be on a public WiFi network and to discourage them from using it. The second reason is to show how major corporations often sacrifice security for convenience, leaving their customers worse for wear. Having WiFi that has no password, no encryption, or any other security measures that truly matter in place is a bad look for any organization.
And for the love of God, stay off of public WiFi!
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