CEH Practice Question: Advanced Topics: Wireless, Cloud, IoT, Cryptography
During a wireless penetration test, a tester captures the 4-way handshake between a client and WPA2-PSK access point. Which tool would the tester MOST likely use to attempt to recover the pre-shared key?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Aircrack-ng
The correct tool is aircrack-ng, which is specifically designed to crack WPA/WPA2 PSK by performing dictionary attacks on captured handshakes. It is part of the aircrack-ng suite widely used for wireless security auditing.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Aircrack-ng
Why this is correct
Aircrack-ng is a comprehensive suite of tools specifically designed for auditing wireless networks, including cracking WPA/WPA2-PSK. It leverages captured 4-way handshakes to perform dictionary or brute-force attacks against the pre-shared key. By comparing the captured handshake with hashes generated from a wordlist, Aircrack-ng can efficiently recover weak or common passphrases.
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Wireshark
Why it's wrong here
Wireshark functions as a powerful network protocol analyzer, capable of capturing and interactively displaying network traffic at a granular level. While it can successfully capture the WPA/WPA2 4-way handshake packets, its primary role is analysis and inspection, not active cracking. Wireshark lacks the built-in functionality to perform dictionary or brute-force attacks required to recover the pre-shared key from the captured data.
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Kismet
Why it's wrong here
Kismet operates as a passive wireless network detector, sniffer, and intrusion detection system. Its core capabilities involve identifying wireless networks, clients, and their associated data rates without actively injecting packets. Kismet is excellent for reconnaissance and mapping wireless environments but does not possess the tools or algorithms necessary for cracking WPA/WPA2 pre-shared keys from captured handshakes.
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Reaver
Why it's wrong here
Reaver is a specialized tool primarily used to exploit vulnerabilities in Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) by brute-forcing the WPS PIN. This attack method targets the WPS protocol's design flaws, allowing an attacker to recover the WPA/WPA2 passphrase by obtaining the PIN. However, Reaver is not designed for or capable of directly cracking WPA/WPA2 pre-shared keys from captured 4-way handshakes when WPS is disabled or not present.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CEH practice question is part of Courseiva's free EC-Council certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CEH exam.