# USB adapters for wifi pentesting

By

Brian Johnson

I'm in the market for a new USB wifi pentest adapter (TLDR: I really like the Panda PAU09 N600), and these resources helped me zero-in on good options:

• Actively maintained list from morrownr
• A list of cards that work well with hostapdmana
• Review of various wifi USB card from v1s1t0r1sh3r3

Run the "monitor" script from here to set your card in monitor mode

# Grab the repo
git clone https://github.com/morrownr/Monitor_Mode.git
cd ~/Monitor_Mode

# Install necessary packages if not already installed
sudo apt install ethtool iw -y

# Check your wifi interfaces
iw dev

# That output will show something like:
#phy#0

#Interface wlan0
#blah
#blah
#blah

# Put that interface into monitor mode
sudo ./start-mon.sh wlan0

If you find yourself suddenly without LAN connectivity after enabling monitor mode, ChatGPT says:

"This is a classic side-effect of monitor mode / airmon-ng shenanigans. Your Wi-Fi testing didn’t break networking permanently — it just knocked your LAN config sideways." To fix it:

sudo dhclient eth0