Chapter 3 of 14

How WiFi passwords get cracked

The four real-world attacks against WiFi keys, ranked.

Understanding the attack helps you pick a defense. The four routes attackers take, in rough order of frequency:

Offline dictionary attack

Attacker sniffs a WPA2 handshake, then runs it against a wordlist of 1B+ leaked passwords. Defeated by length and randomness, not by adding a '!' at the end.

Default & ISP-printed keys

Many router-printed keys are generated from a known algorithm tied to the SSID. Always change the factory password.

Shoulder surfing & sticky notes

The most common 'hack' is reading the password off a whiteboard. Store it in a vault and never display it.

Evil twin / rogue AP

An attacker mimics your SSID. WPA3 and certificate-based EAP defeat this; WPA2-PSK does not.

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