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Aircrack-ng

1.7 open-source

Aircrack-ng is a complete suite of tools to assess WiFi network security, covering monitoring, attacking, testing, and cracking WEP and WPAWPAA Wi-Fi authentication and encryption standard maintained by the Wi-Fi Alliance, replacing WEP; cyber tools target it to audit wireless network credentials and key exchange handshakes. PSK.

Summary

Aircrack-ng is an open-source suite of command-line tools for testing Wi-Fi network security, covering monitoring, packet capturepacket captureA packet capture, recorded network packets that can be inspected later. Analysts use it to reconstruct communication and investigate protocol behavior or suspicious traffic., and cracking WEP and WPA/WPA2 keys. It runs as a set of separate utilities you chain together on the command line: one puts a wireless adapter into monitor mode, another discovers nearby access points and clients, and another recovers a WPA key from a captured handshake. This workflow makes it suited to penetration testers and red teamers auditing wireless networks rather than to defenders monitoring them, and its documentation describes it as a suite spanning attack and cracking rather than a single scanner. First committed in 2006 and maintained by 82 contributors, it has seen only 5 commits in the past year, so development has slowed considerably even though the tool remains widely used.

Aircrack-ng is a complete suite of tools to assess WiFi network security, covering monitoring, attacking, testing, and cracking WEP and WPA PSK.

How Aircrack-ng helps

Which access points and clients are actually broadcasting nearby?

puts a wireless adapter into monitor mode and lists in-range networks and their connected clients, along with the channel and signal each was seen on | which is the reconnaissance step before any capture or attack begins

Which of the captured packets actually contains a usable WPA handshake?

inspects a saved capture for the four-way handshake frames and reports whether a crackable one is present rather than treating any traffic as valid, rejecting files that are not 802.11 wireless captures at all

Is this Wi-Fi password actually crack able from what was captured?

runs the recovered handshake or WEP data against a wordlist or key-space search and reports the key if one matches

Are the access points around this site still running weak WEP encryption?

applies WEP-specific statistical key-recovery attacks to captured packets and returns the key once enough weakly-encrypted packets have been gathered

Would a previous capture session block a rerun before I notice anything is wrong?

checks for an existing session file at the same path and refuses to overwrite it, exiting with an explicit error instead of silently repeating or losing work

all 28 features, with the evidence for each →

Languages

Not documented

Features

28 capabilities · 2 backed by code, an API document or a real run

Built from Aircrack-ng's releases, docs, README and our own runs. “Seen” marks the month we first spotted a release the vendor didn't date. Group names and tags are our labels.

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What Aircrack-ng offers you

  • Command-line interface7
  • CSV data export1
  • Import from a competing product1
  • JSON data export1
All capabilities 28 capabilities
WPA handshake cracking verified Attempts to crack WPA passphrases from a captured four-way handshake using a wordlist or other attack method. 21 releases · 5 other sources · first seen Oct 2004

release 21 total

  • Adds pmkid cracking capability for faster WPA/WPA2 key recovery when the handshake includes a PMKID. 1.4 · Sep 2018 · source · release history
  • Supports HCCAPx files 1.3 · Jul 2018 · source · release history
  • aircrack-ng now displays time remaining and percentage done during WPA dictionary cracking. 1.2-rc4 · Feb 2016 · source · release history
  • Adds ANonce configuration option in airbase-ng to specify a user-defined nonce for the 4-way handshake instead of using a randomized value. 1.2-rc3 · Nov 2015 · source · release history
  • Adds output of WPA handshake data to EWSA project file format in aircrack-ng 1.2-beta1 · May 2013 · source · release history
  • Adds output of WPA handshake data to oclhashcat+ project file format in aircrack-ng 1.2-beta1 · May 2013 · source · release history

docs

  • Suite of WiFi network security cyber tools for monitoring, attacking, testing, and cracking WEP/WPA/WPA2 keys.

we ran it

  • The tool read 0 packets, found no 802.11 wireless networks, and explicitly reported that the file is not a regular 802.11 wireless capture. Aug 2026 · the full run

example

  • Configure using gcrypt crypto library ./configure --with-gcrypt
  • Configure with experimental tools enabled ./configure --with-experimental
  • Crack WPA from a captured handshake aircrack-ng -w rockyou.txt capture.cap
Wireless network discovery shipped Scans for nearby 802.11 access points and associated clients. 18 releases · 3 other sources · first seen Oct 2004

release 18 total

  • Adds Besside-ng regular expression matching for the SSID 1.2-rc1 · Oct 2014 · source · release history
  • airodump-ng adds frequency selection via -C. 1.0-rc1 · Jun 2008 · source · release history
  • Adds 5GHz channel support to the AirPcap version of airodump-ng. 0.9.2 · Feb 2008 · source · release history
  • Adds --berlin option to airodump-ng 1.0-beta1 · Oct 2007 · source · release history
  • Adds out-of-monitor-mode, channel hop and interface down detection in airodump-ng 1.0-beta1 · Oct 2007 · source · release history
  • Adds -f flag to airodump-ng to set hop interval in ms 1.0-beta1 · Oct 2007 · source · release history

docs

  • Suite of WiFi network security cyber tools for monitoring, attacking, testing, and cracking WEP/WPA/WPA2 keys.

example

  • Configure with experimental and external scripts ./configure --with-experimental --with-ext-scripts
  • Discover nearby APs and clients airodump-ng wlan0mon
Monitor mode management shipped Configures a wireless adapter into monitor mode to enable packet capture. 13 releases · 1 other source · first seen Jun 2005

release 13 total

  • Adds ability to crack 802.11w (Protected Management Frames) capture files in Aircrack-ng and Airdecap-ng. 1.4 · Sep 2018 · source · release history
  • Adds support to export captured data to HCCAPx format for Hashcat v3.6+ 1.2-rc5 · Apr 2018 · source · release history
  • Removed airdriver-ng (outdated and not meant for today's kernels). 1.2-rc1 · Oct 2014 · source · release history
  • Added support for at76c503a, rt61 and rt73 drivers via airmon-ng 0.8 · Apr 2007 · source · release history
  • Improves airodump-ng reliability by fixing failures when attempting to put wlanng interfaces into monitor mode 0.6.1 · Aug 2006 · source · release history
  • Adds verification of iwpriv existence in airodump-ng and aireplay-ng 0.4.1 · Apr 2006 · source · release history

example

  • Put the adapter into monitor mode airmon-ng start wlan0
Packet forging shipped Creates custom or modified wireless packets for injection attacks. 11 releases · first seen Oct 2006

release 11 total

  • New tool tkip-tun to inject on WPA1 with QoS enabled networks and break MIC Key. 1.0-rc2 · Jan 2009 · source · release history
  • aireplay-ng added Caffe-Latte attack capability 1.0-rc1 · Jun 2008 · source · release history
  • aireplay-ng added CFrag attack which converts every IP and ARP packet into an ARP request against the client 1.0-rc1 · Jun 2008 · source · release history
  • Adds --fast switch to aireplay-ng for automatic packet injection 1.0-beta1 · Oct 2007 · source · release history
  • Adds bitrate test to aireplay-ng --test (via -B) 1.0-beta1 · Oct 2007 · source · release history
  • Adds --test option to aireplay-ng to run an injection test before attacking. 0.9 · May 2007 · source · release history
Session file handling and capture format support verified Manages session state during cracking runs, refusing to overwrite an existing session file to prevent data loss. 7 releases · 1 other source · first seen Jul 2005

previously: Session file handling

release 7 total

we ran it

  • After printing a single error: Session file already exists pointing at the pcap path. Aug 2026 · the full run
PCAP integration and file handling shipped Allows reading packet captures from PCAP files and supports storing data in a new IVS format for efficient processing. 6 releases · first seen Oct 2007

Also counts toward: Command-line interface, Import from a competing product

release

  • airodump-ng can now read PCAP files in realtime 1.6 · Jan 2020 · source · release history
  • All major aircrack-ng utilities (airodump-ng, aireplay-ng, airdecap-ng, ivstools, airbase-ng, airtun-ng, packetforge-ng, tkiptun-ng) add support for PPI captures. 1.0-rc4 · Jul 2009 · source · release history
  • airodump-ng adds --output-format to specify output files, replacing the deprecated --nocap option. 1.0-rc4 · Jul 2009 · source · release history
  • Adds support for kismet-newcore netxml files (DTD v3.1.0) in airodump-ng 1.0-rc3 · Mar 2009 · source · release history
  • Adds -r flag to airodump-ng to read packets from a pcap file 1.0-beta1 · Oct 2007 · source · release history
  • New IVS format for storing all relevant data 1.0-beta1 · Oct 2007 · source · release history
Wireless tunnel and session replay shipped Creates wireless tunnels and replays saved WLAN sessions for testing or analysis. 6 releases · first seen Apr 2007

Also counts toward: Command-line interface

release

  • Adds airtun-ng WPA/2 support 1.2 · Apr 2018 · source · release history
  • Adds CCMP and TKIP decryption to airtun-ng for captured traffic, plus CCMP encryption support 1.2-rc2 · Apr 2015 · source · release history
  • Adds WDS and bridge support to airtun-ng 1.1 · Apr 2010 · source · release history
  • airbase-ng now includes a replay tool for external packet processing 1.0-rc1 · Jun 2008 · source · release history
  • Added repeater mode, bssid and netmask filter in airtun-ng 0.8 · Apr 2007 · source · release history
  • Added pcap support to replay saved wlan sessions in airtun-ng 0.8 · Apr 2007 · source · release history
Network reconnaissance and discovery shipped Discovers nearby wireless networks and associated clients for assessment. 5 releases · first seen Apr 2010

Also counts toward: Command-line interface

release

Platform compatibility enhancements shipped Extends support for new operating system interfaces, such as the netlink interface in Linux. 4 releases · first seen May 2013

release

  • aircrack-ng adds Apple M1 detection during startup 1.7 · May 2022 · source · release history
  • Improves chipset/driver detection including FreeBSD and Nexmon on Raspberry Pi 3 1.2 · Apr 2018 · source · release history
  • Adds an autotools build system for broader platform compilation support 1.2-rc5 · Apr 2018 · source · release history
  • Adds OS support for netlink interface via the make libnl=true build parameter 1.2-beta1 · May 2013 · source · release history
WEP attack methods shipped Performs WEP key recovery using dictionary attacks, passive PTW attacks, and visual inspection of key bytes. 4 releases · first seen Jan 2007

release

  • aircrack-ng added oneshot option to run PTW attack exactly once 1.0-rc1 · Jun 2008 · source · release history
  • Adds --visual-inspection to aircrack-ng for key byte inspection 1.0-beta1 · Oct 2007 · source · release history
  • Adds passive PTW attack to aircrack-ng (using IP packets) 1.0-beta1 · Oct 2007 · source · release history
  • aircrack-ng added WEP dictionary attack capability 0.7 · Jan 2007 · source · release history
Runtime CPU optimization trampoline shipped Automatically selects the fastest available CPU-optimized binary version at runtime to enhance performance. 3 releases · first seen Apr 2018

release

  • Autotools adds initial support for Link Time Optimization (LTO) builds 1.7 · May 2022 · source · release history
  • Introduces a trampoline binary that automatically selects the best CPU executable 1.2 · Apr 2018 · source · release history
  • Adds a trampoline binary that automatically selects the fastest CPU version at runtime 1.2-rc5 · Apr 2018 · source · release history
MAC address decoding shipped Decodes MAC addresses to identify manufacturers and other details. 3 releases · first seen Oct 2006

Also counts toward: Command-line interface

release

  • Improves Airodump-ng to parse the canonical oui file 1.2-rc1 · Oct 2014 · source · release history
  • Adds support for displaying the manufacturer column in airodump-ng via the --manufacturer flag 1.2-beta1 · May 2013 · source · release history
  • Adds new MAC decoding function available in aircrack-ng, aireplay-ng, and packetforge-ng. 0.6.2 · Oct 2006 · source · release history
Remote capture infrastructure shipped Enables remote packet capture via a loopback server and supports hardware adapters like airpcap. 3 releases · first seen Oct 2007

release

Environment preparation automation shipped Automates the detection and termination of background services that interfere with wireless adapter operation. 2 releases · first seen May 2013

Also counts toward: Command-line interface

release

  • airmon-ng shows regdomain in verbose mode and supports systemctl to stop services 1.7 · May 2022 · source · release history
  • Adds check kill subcommand to airmon-ng to automatically kill interfering services 1.2-beta1 · May 2013 · source · release history
Extended protocol and channel support shipped Enables capture and display of 802.11n/ac rates with HT40+/- channel widths, and outputs WPA hashes in EWSA and hashcat formats. 2 releases · first seen Apr 2018

release

  • airodump-ng now calculates rates for 802.11n/ac APs instead of being limited to 54Mbit 1.6 · Jan 2020 · source · release history
  • Outputs WPA hashes in EWSA and hashcat formats for external processing 1.2 · Apr 2018 · source · release history
GPS data logging and integration shipped Supports outputting captured location data via JSON to recent GPSd versions or exporting logs in CSV format. 2 releases · first seen Apr 2018

Also counts toward: CSV data export, JSON data export

release

Wireless adapter configuration shipped Configures wireless interfaces for specific operational modes, including monitor mode and network tunneling. 2 releases · first seen Apr 2007

release

  • Airmon-ng supports setting Nexmon devices in/out of monitor mode on Kali 1.2-rc5 · Apr 2018 · source · release history
  • Added repeater mode, bssid and netmask filter in airtun-ng 0.8 · Apr 2007 · source · release history
WEP capture enhancements shipped Improves packet capture for WEP analysis by filtering encryption types and hiding known stations to reduce noise. 2 releases · first seen Apr 2007

release

WEP decryption and automation shipped Provides tools for realtime WEP frame decryption and automated key recovery workflows. 2 releases · first seen Oct 2007

release

  • Adds wesside-ng as an all-in-one tool for recovering WEP keys 1.0-beta1 · Oct 2007 · source · release history
  • Adds easside-ng for realtime decryption (instant rx/tx) of WEP frames 1.0-beta1 · Oct 2007 · source · release history
WEP key generation utilities shipped Generates necessary data frames (IVs) for WEP attacks, supporting standard and 256-bit keys with customizable parameters. 2 releases · first seen Oct 2007

Also counts toward: Command-line interface

release

  • Adds makeivs-ng support for 256-bit WEP generation 1.0-beta1 · Oct 2007 · source · release history
  • Added makeivs-ng parameters to set length, number, first IV, and percentage of false/dupe frames 1.0-beta1 · Oct 2007 · source · release history
WEP key merging and filtering shipped Merges keys from multiple BSSIDs and limits the number of IVs processed for targeted attacks. 2 releases · first seen Oct 2007

release

Wireless statistics and monitoring shipped Displays detailed encryption information, receive quality, and acknowledgment packet statistics for network assessment. 2 releases · first seen Jan 2007

release

  • Adds --showack flag to airodump-ng to print ack/cts/rts stats 1.0-beta1 · Oct 2007 · source · release history
  • airodump-ng display includes encryption info and receive quality indicator 0.7 · Jan 2007 · source · release history
Enhanced frame injection and decryption tunneling shipped Provides tools for real-time WEP decryption, automated key recovery workflows, and supports WPA/2 decrypted packet forwarding through wireless tunnels. 1 release · first seen Apr 2018

release

Cracking efficacy assessment shipped Provides benchmarking capabilities to evaluate the performance of the cracking process. 1 release · first seen May 2013

release

Distributed cracking infrastructure shipped Enables distributed password cracking across multiple networked machines via server and client components. 1 release · first seen May 2013

Also counts toward: Command-line interface

release

  • Adds dcrack tool for distributed cracking server/client 1.2-beta1 · May 2013 · source · release history
Capture file configuration shipped Controls whether captured packets are saved to disk and specifies the output format for session files. 1 release · first seen Mar 2009

release

  • Adds option to airodump-ng to disable capture file while creating other outputs 1.0-rc3 · Mar 2009 · source · release history
WEP frame cloaking detection and removal shipped Identifies and removes WEP cloaked frames from packet capture files to clean data for analysis. 1 release · first seen Jan 2009

release

  • New tool airdecloak-ng to remove wep cloaked frames from a pcap file. 1.0-rc2 · Jan 2009 · source · release history
WEP packet cloaking shipped Attempts to bypass MAC filtering or detection mechanisms by decrypting and forwarding WEP packets. 1 release · first seen Oct 2007

release

Lines in monospace are the tool's own words: help text parsed from its source, or an endpoint from its API document. Under release, a line is our summary of a dated release. Under docs, it is quoted from the tool's own documentation or website. Each links back to the source it came from.

Score card

  1. Shipping velocity releases a month, last 12 months
  2. Documentation quality release-notes rubric, 0–100
  3. Breaking-change discipline how rarely a release breaks users, and notice given
  4. Maintenance risk quiet time against its own cadence, maintainers
  5. Innovation & surface new capabilities, API and MCP surface
  6. Community health
  7. Contributor trend distinct committers, this year against last
  8. Maintainer concentration bus factor now against a year ago
  9. Issue backlog trend issues closed per issue opened, 12 months
  10. Responsiveness median time to a maintainer’s first reply

Nine scores for Aircrack-ng, each built from the releases, notes and API history this site tracks — and, on Researcher and Business, where it stands among every measured tool in its category and how that has moved.

Score cards are part of every paid plan.

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Each score is 0–100 on a published rubric, derived from data this site already shows. A dimension we cannot measure says so — it is never scored 0 and never enters a rank.

How this is scored
  • Shipping velocity — releases a month over the last 12 months, on a log scale where 16 a month scores 100. Needs 3 releases in the window.
  • Documentation quality — the release-notes rubric published on the analytics page, unchanged.
  • Breaking-change discipline — the share of releases carrying a breaking change (none scores 100, half or more scores 0). Only projects that label breaking changes are measured: a clean record cannot be told from an unlabelled one.
  • Maintenance risk — quiet time measured against the tool's own release cadence (quiet longer than 90 days and three typical gaps scores 0), plus the number of active maintainers and whether contributors are growing, where known. Higher is lower risk.
  • Innovation & surface — new capabilities in the feature ledger this year, API and MCP operations added, and the share of commits that are features: the mean of whichever we hold.
  • Community health (open-source tools only) — each is a direction, not a size: contributors this year against last, the bus factor now against a year ago, and issues closed per issue opened, where steady scores 50, doubled 100 and halved 0; plus the median time to a maintainer's first reply (an hour scores about 100, a month or more 0). A commercial card has no repository and carries none of the four.
  • Documented delivery (commercial tools) — when a vendor's documented new capabilities have slowed against its own baseline, that counts against the overall standing as heavily as two low dimensions. Steady delivery, or too little history to judge, leaves the standing alone; it is never a sixth score.
  • Open-source tools are scored on repository signals; commercial tools on their published changelog. Ranks compare tools within one category and one profile and need at least five measured peers; the overall standing needs three ranked dimensions. Best-in-breed or consolidator is a shape, not a quality, and is never scored.

Release-note detail over time

See how much detail Aircrack-ng puts in its release notes, quarter by quarter, and compare it with tracked tools in the same category. This history uses up to ten retained, reviewed notes per tool; sparse or blank older quarters may reflect that limit.

Checking release-note history…

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Releases

Show

41 entries

  1. May 20221
  2. January 20201
  3. December 20181
  4. September 20181
  5. July 20181
  6. April 20182
  7. February 20161
  8. November 20151
  9. April 20151
  10. October 20141
  11. May 20131
  12. April 20101
  13. July 20091
  14. March 20091
  15. January 20091
  16. June 20081
  17. February 20082
  18. October 20071
  19. May 20071
  20. April 20071
  21. January 20071
  22. October 20061
  23. August 20061
  24. June 20061
  25. May 20061
  26. April 20062
  27. March 20062
  28. November 20052
  29. August 20052
  30. July 20053
  31. June 20052
  32. October 20041
    Show

    41 entries

    Project health

    Issue, contributor and maintainer activity in aircrack-ng/aircrack-ng, 2023-10 – 2026-09, as of 2026-09-25. Twelve-month figures first; the trend lines run the whole window.

    1. Contributors 2 −1 vs prior 12 months
    2. Maintainers 1 +1 joined · −0 left, last 12 months
    3. Bus factor 1 committers behind half the commits
    4. Community-filed 100% of issues opened, last 12 months
    5. Median time to close < 1 day first maintainer reply 1 hour
    6. Open backlog 414 of 2,313 issues ever filed
    1. Issues opened / month 0 · 0 communitymaintainers
    2. Open backlog 414
    3. Contributors / month 1
    4. Commits / month 5
    5. Stars 7,659
    Issue themes, last 12 months
    • other 100%

    Counts from the project's public repository and git history; no individuals are identified. Maintainers are the committers covering 80% of the last year's commits. how we measure this

    Articles

    1 article · updated Nov 4, 2026

    Where Aircrack-ng turns up in what others publish: how-tos, attack reports that name it, and incident write-ups. A row says why it is here and quotes where the article names it; the link goes to the publisher.

    Tutorials & guides 1

    • Wireless Penetration Testing: Aircrack-ng Hacking Articles
      Aircrack-ng is not a tool, but it is a suite of tools that all perform different types of attacks or activities related to Wireless Access Points.
      2 more quotes
      In this demonstration, we will be focusing on a few of the tools from the Aircrack-ng arsenal.
      With the help of Aircrack-ng, a penetration tester can focus on Monitoring, Attacking, Testing, and Cracking aspects of the Wi-Fi Security.

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