KisMAC for Mac

Quick summary

KisMAC is a passive Wi‑Fi discovery utility for macOS aimed at users who want a powerful tool to locate and inspect nearby wireless networks. If you already scan for wireless signals, this app provides detailed information about networks and clients, along with visual tools to help analyze signal behavior.

First steps and driver selection

Before you begin a scan you must pick a driver. The app lists multiple driver options, which can be confusing if you don’t know your Mac’s wireless hardware. Check your system’s hardware specifications to determine the correct driver; once selected you can start scanning immediately.

Main capabilities

• Reveals network details such as SSIDs and connected clients, even for hidden or “closed” networks.
• Provides multiple visualization modes, including a signal graph and a world map overlay for GPS‑tagged captures.
• Displays performance metrics for discovered access points to help you compare signal strength and quality.

Supported adapters and chipsets

• Lucent Hermes I & II series
• Cisco Aironet devices
• Apple Airport/Apple wireless adapters

Responsible and ethical use

KisMAC includes tools that can be used to test encryption (for example, WEP recovery methods). Use these features only on networks you own or have explicit permission to test. Unauthorized attempts to bypass security on networks you do not control is illegal and unethical.

Recent fixes and updates

• Multiple crash issues addressed, including problems in USB driver handling and crashes triggered when a network lacked GPS coordinates.
• Resolved a crash that could occur if CoreLocation was initialized more than once, and another when a network color had not been assigned.
• Set CoreLocation as the fallback GPS provider when no GPS device is configured.
• Configured Airport Active Mode to be the default driver if none is selected.
• Logging behavior adjusted: logs now redirect to ~/Library/Logs/KisMAC.log and logging verbosity reduced when using the active Airport driver.
• Added basic support for joining networks (note: WPA/WPA2 support is not included yet).
• Various additional stability improvements and minor bug fixes.

Alternative option

If you need a different approach for virtual private networking rather than passive Wi‑Fi analysis, consider trying LogMeIn Hamachi (offers a free tier) as a simple, cross‑platform VPN solution.