Network Survey

The WiFi side of AirLeak isn't just for finding networks — it's for understanding their security posture, generation, and load. This tutorial walks through doing a deep survey of the WiFi environment around you.

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When you'd want a survey

• Auditing your own home / office network
• Comparing nearby APs before deploying a new one (channel choice)
• Pen-test reconnaissance (with permission)
• Privacy research — what does this venue's WiFi look like?
• Diagnosing slow WiFi by seeing which channels are crowded

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Running the survey

1. Connect AirLeak. Switch to Monitor.
2. Wait 60 seconds for the channel hopper to complete a couple of full sweeps.
3. Open Devices → WiFi networks.

Each row is one observed network. Counts grow as more APs are seen.

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What each column tells you

Encryption

The condensed security label:

Channel + Generation

• Channel — 1–13 on 2.4 GHz. Channels 1, 6, and 11 are the non-overlapping channels; everything else interferes with neighbors.
• Generation — WiFi 4 / 5 / 6 / 7. AirLeak captures from beacons; WiFi 5 (only used on 5 GHz historically) is rare on 2.4. WiFi 6 on 2.4 is common in newer routers.

Stations

The number of clients currently associated to that AP, as reported by the BSS Load IE. Most consumer APs broadcast this.

A "guest" network with 47 clients is busier than the receptionist would have you believe. A "private" enterprise network with 250 clients is a busy office.

Country

The country code from the country IE. Should match your actual location. A misconfigured router showing KR while you're in Berlin tells a story.

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Going deeper: click a network

Click any network row to open its detail page. The WiFi-specific section shows:

• AKM suite — PSK / SAE / 802.1X / FT-PSK / FT-SAE / OWE. The combination of cipher + AKM produces the encryption label.
• Group cipher / Pairwise cipher — TKIP / CCMP-128 / GCMP-256, etc.
• MFP state — required / capable / off. WPA3 mandates required; WPA2 should be at least capable.
• 802.11r — fast-roaming support. Common at offices.
• 802.11k — radio measurement support. Helps clients pick better APs.
• Vendor IEs — Apple / Aruba / Cisco / Ubiquiti / TP-Link IEs may be present.

This is the deepest the firmware decodes — no further protocol layers (the data plane is encrypted on protected networks).

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Reading security alerts

The WiFi tab surfaces several built-in alerts:

Click any alert to see the affected network and timestamp.

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Hidden SSIDs

Networks with the SSID hidden show up in the table with <hidden> as the name. AirLeak can still see:

• The BSSID (so you can identify the AP physically)
• The encryption type
• The channel
• The number of associated clients

Hiding the SSID provides essentially no security — the AP still emits beacons, and any associated client's probe-request reveals the name. Hidden networks are an inconvenience-only feature.

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Detecting evil-twin / rogue APs

A rogue AP is one impersonating a legitimate network — same SSID, attacker's BSSID. Symptoms:

• Two beacons with the same SSID but different BSSIDs, both at strong signal
• One has different encryption than the other (especially: legitimate is WPA2-Enterprise but the rogue is open or WPA2-Personal)
• Deauth bursts observed (deauth_burst alert) — common in evil-twin scenarios where the attacker disconnects clients to force them to reconnect to the rogue

Workflow:

1. Open WiFi tab, search for the legitimate network's SSID.
2. If multiple BSSIDs appear, click each. Compare encryption, MFP, country, vendor IEs.
3. If one is suspiciously simpler (e.g. WPA2-Personal while the legitimate is WPA2-Enterprise), it may be rogue.
4. Check the alert log for deauth_burst around the same time.

This isn't a definitive proof of an attack but it's a strong signal.

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Mobile hotspots

Phones in hotspot mode advertise as APs. They show up classified as wifi_ap_mobile_hotspot and typically have:

• Short uptime (no uptime IE because the "AP" only just came up)
• Encryption WPA2 / WPA3 Personal
• Vendor IE matching the phone's vendor (Apple / Samsung / etc.)
• Often non-default channel (the phone picks based on what's clear)

Useful for spotting "is anyone in this room currently tethering?" Often surprising in conference settings.

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Channel utilization view

The Insights → Network leakage tab shows a horizontal bar chart of how busy each channel is:

Channel  1   ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮  8 networks
Channel  6   ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮  12 networks
Channel 11   ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮  9 networks
Channel  2-5,7-10,12-13   ▮  1 each

Useful for picking a channel for your own AP. Stick to 1, 6, or 11 (the non-overlapping channels). Pick the least crowded of those three.

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What you can't see

• 5 GHz networks — AirLeak is 2.4 GHz only. Modern home APs often dual-band; you'll see the 2.4 advertisement but not the 5 GHz BSSID.
• Encrypted data traffic — passwords, page content, emails. AirLeak only reads management frames.
• Network passwords or PSKs — these are never broadcast.

For 5 GHz survey work, you'd need a different tool.

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