wifi sniffer | wifi packet sniffer basics | vendors
This page describes wifi sniffer basics. It covers operation of wifi packet sniffer. The vendors and manufacturers of wifi sniffer are also mentioned.
The wifi sniffer captures and analyzes WLAN packet transmitted over the air by nearby wifi/wlan devices. The sniffer consists of wifi hardware and software application to display the useful WLAN PHY, MAC and upper layer informations.
As we know the sniffer analyzes the entire WLAN protocol stack. There are different versions of WLAN as per IEEE standards 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ad. Hence one need to buy the sniffer as per their standard requirements. Refer WLAN MAC protocol which helps at what level of wlan protocol analysis is expected from the sniffer.
WiFi Packet sniffer Application Note

The figure depicts wifi packet sniffer. As shown in the setup, wifi protocol analyzer application usually utilize built-in wifi or wlan card or chip available
in the laptop or tablet for capturing the wifi packet from the air.
One such application freely available is Acrylic WiFi professional.
Following are the silent features of this wifi sniffer application:
• Works on windows-7/8/8.1/10
• Displays channel (either 2.4 or 5GHz ), signal strength etc.
• Dislays source address, destination address, BSSID
• It displays frame type (management, control, data) and subtypes (beacon, probe request, probe response,
ACK etc.)
• It decodes and displays entire frame data in hex format
Vendors or manufacturers of WiFi sniffer or WLAN sniffer
Following table lists out vendors/manufacturers of wifi sniffer or wlan sniffer software and hardware providers.
Company | wifi sniffer/wlan sniffer description |
---|---|
TamoSoft | WiFi/WLAN packet analyzer for 802.11 WLAN Traffic supports 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, scans for wifi APs and Stations |
Fluke Networks | AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer PRO |
Savvius Inc. | OmniPeek |
CACE Technologies (Part of Riverbed Technology) | AirPcap (802.11 wireless packet capture device) known as wlan sniffer |
ACRYLIC | WiFi network traffic sniffer, supports windows 7/8/8.1/10 |
WiFi Technology RELATED LINKS
WLAN standards-11a,11b,11g,11n,11ac WLAN tutorial WLAN MAC protocol 11a WLAN Physical layer 11b WLAN Physical layer 11n WLAN Physical layer WLAN 802.11-ac WLAN 802.11-ad