During the preparation phase of a network penetration test, it's essential to understand the objective of security testing on the target's systems and/or network infrastructure. Prior to launching any sort of attack simulation, it's important to be an anonymous user (or pretend to be a legitimate user) on the network by spoofing the MAC address of your device and configuring your wireless network adapter to monitor and capture wireless traffic on an IEEE 802.11 wireless network.

Network penetration testing focuses on gaining entry to a network and performing security auditing (penetration testing) on network security appliances, devices, and systems within the internal network of a target organization. In this chapter, you will learn about the various modes that can be configured on a wireless adapter in Kali Linux, how to spoof your MAC address, and how to capture packets on a wireless network.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Introduction to network penetration testing
• Understanding the MAC address
• Connecting a wireless adapter to Kali Linux
• Managing and monitoring wireless modes