Working with headphones on usually means youd rather not be bothered, but sometimes it means youre just listening to something while you work. If you want to be. How to Hack Wi Fi Passwords. Chances are you have a Wi Fi network at home, or live close to one or more that tantalizingly pop up in a list whenever you boot up the laptop. The problem is, if theres a lock next to the network name the SSID, or service set identifier, that indicates security is turned on. Without the password or passphrase, youre not going to get access to that network, or the sweet, sweet internet that goes with it. Perhaps you forgot the password on your own network, or dont have neighbors willing to share the Wi Fi goodness. You could just go to a caf, buy a latte, and use the free Wi Fi there. Download an app for your phone like. 4. Cain Able. Cain Able is another popular tool used for cracking wireless network passwords. This tool was developed to intercept the network traffic and then. Whether youre a computer novice or a prolevel geek, you probably have some idea about Wifi security. You know that you need to have some kind of password, and you. Wi. Fi Map available for i. OS and Android, and youll have a list of over 2 million hotspots with free Wi Fi for the taking including some passwords for locked Wi Fi connections, if theyre shared by any of the apps 7 million users. But there are other ways to get back on the wireless, though some of them require such extreme patience and waiting, that the caf idea is going to look pretty good. Windows Commands to Get the Key. This trick works to recover a Wi Fi network password aka network security key only if youve previously attached to the Wi Fi in question using that very password. In other words, it only works if youve forgotten a password. It works because Windows 8 and 1. Wi Fi network to which you attach. If you tell Windows to forget the network, then it also forgets the password, so this wont work. But most people never explicitly do that. It requires that you go into a Windows Command Prompt with administrative privileges. To do so, use Cortana to search for cmd and the menu will show Command Prompt right click that entry and select Run as administrator. Thatll open the black box full of white text with the prompt insideits the line with a at the end, probably something like C WINDOWSsystem. A blinking cursor will indicate where you type. Start with this netsh wlan show profile. The results will bring up a section called User Profilesthose are all the Wi Fi networks aka WLANs, or wireless local area networks youve accessed and saved. Pick the one you want to get the password for, highlight it, and copy it. At the prompt below, type the following, but replace the Xs with the network name you copied you only need the quotation marks if the network name has spaces in it. XXXXXXXX keyclear. In the new data that comes up, look under Security Settings for the line Key Content. The word displayed is the Wi Fi passwordkey you are missing. On mac. OS, open up the Spotlight search CmdSpace and type terminal to get the Mac equivalent of a command prompt. Type the following, replacing the Xs with the network name. XXXXXReset the Router. The above option is more of a friendly option for known networks this is the brute force method. Before you do a full router reset just to get on the wireless, try to log into the router first. From there, you can easily reset your Wi Fi passwordkey if youve forgotten it. Thats not possible if you dont know the password for the router, either. Theyre not the same thing unless you set it up that way. Resetting the router only works if you have access. That access could be over Wi Fi which weve just established you dont have or physically utilizing an Ethernet cable. Or that access can simply be you being in the same room as the router. Almost every router in existence has a recessed reset button. Push it with a pen or unfolded paperclip, hold it for about 1. If youve got a router that came from your internet service provider ISP, check the stickers on the unit before a resetthe ISP might have printed the routerand. Wi Fi key right on the hardware. Once a router is reset, you need another password plus a username to access the router itself. Again, you can do this via a PC attached to the router via Ethernetyoull need that since the reset probably killed any potential Wi Fi connection you had going in. The actual access is typically done with a web browser. The URL to type is either 1. Try them randomly, which generally works. Or, to figure out which one, on the PC connected to the router, open a command prompt and type ipconfig without the quotes. Look among the gobbledygook for an IPv. Address, which will start with 1. The other two spaces, called octets, are going to be different numbers between 0 and 2. Note the third octet probably a 1 or 0. The fourth is specific to the PC youre using to log into the router. In the browser type 1. X with the number you found in the ipconfig search. The 1 in the last octet should point at the routerits the number one device on the network. At this point, the router should then ask for a username and password. Y can check your manual, but you probably lost or threw that away. So instead, go to. Router. Passwords. Youll need the routers model number, but thats easy enough to find on the back or bottom. Youll quickly see a pattern among router makers of having the username ofadminand a password ofpassword. Since most people are lazy and dont change an assigned password, you could try those options before hitting the reset button. But cmon, youre better than thatchange the password when you access the routers settings via your web browser. Once youve accessed the router interface, go to the Wi Fi settings, turn on the wireless networks, and assign strong but easy to recall passwords. After all, you dont want to share with neighbors without your permission. Make that Wi Fi password easy to type on a mobile device, too. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to get a smartphone on Wi Fi with some cryptic, impossible to key in via thumbs nonsense, even if it is the most secure. Crack the Code. You didnt come here because the headline said reset the router, though. You want to know how to crack the password on a Wi Fi network. Searching on wi fi password hack, or other variations, nets you a lot of linksmostly for software on sites where the adware and bots and scams are pouring like snake oil. Download them at your own risk, for Windows PCs especially. Its best to have a PC that you can afford to get effed up a bit if you go that route. I had multiple attempts with tools I found just get outright deleted by my antivirus before I could even try to run the EXE installation file. You could create a system just for this kind of thing, maybe dual boot into a separate operating system that can do whats called penetration testinga form of offensive approach security, where you examine a network for any and all possible paths of a breach. Kali Linux is a Linux distribution built for just that purpose. You can run Kali Linux off a CD or USB key without even installing it to your PCs hard drive. Its free and comes with all the tools youd need to crack a network. If youre only after a Wi Fi network, the Wifislax distro is a Live CD targets them directly. If you dont want to install a whole OS, then try the tried and true tools of Wi Fi hackers. Aircrack has been around for years, going back to when Wi Fi security was only based on WEP Wired Equivalent Privacy. WEP was weak even back in the day and was supplanted in 2. WPA Wi Fi Protected Access. The latest. Aircrack nglabeled as a set of tools for auditing wireless networks, so it should be part of any network admins toolkitwill take on cracking WEP and WPA PSK keys. Aircrack ng comes with full documentation, but its not simple.