USB adapters for wifi pentesting

By

Brian Johnson

I'm in the market for a new USB wifi pentest adapter (TLDR: I really like the Panda PAU09 N600), and these resources helped me zero-in on good options:

• Actively maintained list from morrownr
• A list of cards that work well with hostapdmana
• Review of various wifi USB card from v1s1t0r1sh3r3

Using USB wifi adapter for pentesting

Put the adapter into monitor mode

Run the "monitor" script from here to set your card in monitor mode

# Grab the repo
git clone https://github.com/morrownr/Monitor_Mode.git
cd ~/Monitor_Mode

# Install necessary packages if not already installed
sudo apt install ethtool iw -y

# Check your wifi interfaces
iw dev

# That output will show something like:
#phy#0

#Interface wlan0
#blah
#blah
#blah

# Put that interface into monitor mode
sudo ./start-mon.sh wlan0

Troubleshooting

LAN connection go bye bye?

If you find yourself suddenly without LAN connectivity after enabling monitor mode, ChatGPT says:

"This is a classic side-effect of monitor mode / airmon-ng shenanigans. Your Wi-Fi testing didn’t break networking permanently — it just knocked your LAN config sideways." To fix it:

sudo dhclient eth0

Video demo