How to Track WiFi With OSINT Using the Wigle Map.

By Kyle Reese

WARNING! I DO NOT CONDUCT OR CONDONE ANY ILLEGAL ACTIVITY. THE FOLLOWING IS BASED ON MY OWN RESEARCH AND IS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR HOW YOU USE MY RESEARCH. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Have you ever been investigating and managed to locate the name of your target’s WiFi? Maybe the target foolishly posted a picture online with his WiFi name in the photo. There are many ways to track this piece of information, but the one I will be talking about today is the Wigle method. 

What is Wigle and Wardriving?

Wigle is an online database that is crowdsourced by what are known as “wardrivers.” Wardriving is the art of driving around, collecting information on wifi networks, saving it, then going home to parse through the data and look for vulnerabilities. Now, there is much more to it than that, but for the sake of this research I am not going into it further. What Wigle does is supply a database for the wardrivers and even an app, where the wardrivers can upload all the data they have collected. The data they collect ranges from bluetooth information to cell tower information, but mainly WiFi network information. They collect data on what protocols they are using, what their Wifi names (SSID) are and what their BSSID’s are (The mac address of the access point). This information is then added to the Wigle framework and mapped out for other wardrivers to use and study. Now, a lot of researchers leave that alone and don’t look into it further, but that is not what we are here to do. 

How to use Wigle while conducting OSINT?

So I am going to assume that you have your subject’s wifi information. How you got it, beats me. However, if you have the SSID or the BSSID, you can use the Wigle map to see if it has ever been scanned and added to the Wigle database. If it has, you are in luck. The Wigle map should zoom in straight to the location at which it was scanned, usually within about 50-100 yards from the exact location. You can then pull the GPS coordinates from the map and use your favorite mapping tool to look into the address further.

For the example I use “fbi surveillance van” as my SSID

A Special Thank You.

It’s important to remember that this is a crowdsourced project that could not be possible without wardrivers or warwalkers putting in the time and mapping all of this out. If you are interested in this sort of thing, please go check out #wardriving on twitter or instagram and see what people are up to. There are also Discord groups, IRC chats, and forums dedicated to this hobby. If you want to get into this amazing hobby, feel free to download the Wigle app and give it some practice. This is not sponsored by any company or individual, but I highly recommend you upload your data to the Wigle network and share it with the world.
I’ll see you out wardriving, my friend.
Your’s Truly
–Kyle