Book Image

Mastering Wireshark

Book Image

Mastering Wireshark

Overview of this book

Wireshark is a popular and powerful tool used to analyze the amount of bits and bytes that are flowing through a network. Wireshark deals with the second to seventh layer of network protocols, and the analysis made is presented in a human readable form. Mastering Wireshark will help you raise your knowledge to an expert level. At the start of the book, you will be taught how to install Wireshark, and will be introduced to its interface so you understand all its functionalities. Moving forward, you will discover different ways to create and use capture and display filters. Halfway through the book, you’ll be mastering the features of Wireshark, analyzing different layers of the network protocol, looking for any anomalies. As you reach to the end of the book, you will be taught how to use Wireshark for network security analysis and configure it for troubleshooting purposes.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Mastering Wireshark
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Understanding IEEE 802.11


At the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer (IEEE), there are several committees working together on several projects, and one of these is 802, which is responsible for developing LAN standards. A free white paper can be downloaded from the IEEE website based on 802 standards. Specifically, 802.11 contains WLAN standards. If you want to analyze what normal traffic looks like, you should be aware of the standards and the present working technologies within 802.11.

There are a couple of 802.11 standards, but the few important ones that we should know about are 802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11g, and 802.11n, which are explained in the following list:

  • 802.11: This only supports a network bandwidth of 1-2 Mbps. This is the reason why many 802.11-compatible devices have become obsolete. Hence, it became necessary to develop other 802.11 standards.

  • 802.11b: This specification uses a signaling frequency of 2.4 Ghz that is similar to the 802.11 standard. A maximum of...