In this chapter, we will cover all of the concepts that will be needed to get started with network penetration testing. We will start off with what a network is, and see two types of networks: wired and wireless. Later, we will see how to connect a wireless adapter to a virtual machine. After that, we will look at what a MAC address is also, steps to change a MAC address. Finally, we will see methods for activating the monitor mode.

The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

• What is a network?
• Network basics
• Connecting to a wireless adapter
• MAC addresses
• Wireless modes – managed and monitor
• Enabling monitor mode manually
• Enabling monitor mode using airmon-ng