Great question. In one sentence it is a purple tool, meaning both! Wireshark itself is a passive tool, it is non-intrusive — it doesn’t create attacks — but it’s a force multiplier for both Red and Blue Teams depending on who controls the capture point and how the data is used.
- For Red Teams, it’s about intelligence gathering, exploitation preparation, and validation of attack techniques.
- For Blue Teams, it’s about detection, validation, and defense.
Let me dig a little deeper.
Blue Team (Defensive / Protective Operations)
Blue Teams use Wireshark as a passive network analysis and forensic tool to strengthen defenses and investigate incidents:
- Incident Response & Threat Hunting
- Capture live traffic or analyze saved PCAPs to identify malicious patterns.
- Trace attacker movement, compromised accounts, or lateral network activity.
- Intrusion Verification
- Validate IDS/IPS alerts by examining actual packets.
- Differentiate between false positives and real intrusions.
- Malware & C2 Traffic Detection
- Spot beaconing intervals, DNS tunneling, or suspicious TLS certificates.
- Data Loss Prevention Checks
- Verify that sensitive data is not being transmitted in cleartext.
- Security Control Testing
- Confirm firewalls, VPN encryption, and segmentation are working as intended.
Red Team (Offensive / Adversarial Operations)
Red Teams use Wireshark to observe, dissect, and exploit network traffic during penetration testing or adversary emulation:
- Network Reconnaissance
- Capture traffic to discover live hosts, open ports, and active services.
- Build a map of the target network from observed communications.
- Credential & Session Harvesting
- Identify plaintext usernames/passwords in insecure protocols (HTTP, FTP, Telnet, POP3, etc.).
- Spot unencrypted session cookies for potential hijacking.
- Protocol Exploitation Research
- Analyze proprietary or poorly configured protocols for weaknesses.
- MITM Validation
- Confirm a man-in-the-middle setup is intercepting the intended target’s traffic.
- Exfiltration Testing
- Validate that simulated data exfiltration over covert channels is stealthy.
General Blue Team vs. Red Team Use Cases for Wireshark
| Use Case | Blue Team (Defensive) | Red Team (Offensive) | Example Packet Types / Targets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Incident Response / Threat Hunting | Analyze live or stored captures to pinpoint malicious activity, trace attacker movements, and determine impact. | Review captured traffic during a pen test to verify payload delivery and C2 communication success. | TCP streams, DNS queries, HTTP requests, TLS handshakes |
| Intrusion Verification | Validate IDS/IPS alerts against packet data to confirm real threats and filter out false positives. | Test stealth of attack traffic by confirming it doesn’t trigger detection in the target’s monitoring tools. | Suspicious HTTP POSTs, unusual ports, malformed packets |
| Malware Traffic Analysis | Identify beaconing, exfiltration, or tunneling from infected hosts. | Simulate malware C2 traffic and confirm it blends into normal patterns. | Repeated DNS TXT queries, periodic HTTPS connections |
| Credential & Data Protection Checks | Ensure sensitive data (credentials, PII) is encrypted in transit. | Capture unencrypted credentials for insecure services to prove impact. | FTP/Telnet logins, HTTP Basic Auth, POP3 credentials |
| Network Reconnaissance | Build a baseline of normal network activity for anomaly detection. | Capture and map live hosts, open ports, protocols in use. | ARP broadcasts, NetBIOS name service, SSDP |
| Protocol & Service Validation | Confirm security settings in protocols like TLS, SIP, SMB. | Analyze protocols for misconfigurations or exploitable weaknesses. | TLS versions, SIP INVITE messages, SMBv1 traffic |
| Man-in-the-Middle Detection / Testing | Identify ARP spoofing, rogue DHCP, or SSL stripping attempts. | Verify MITM interception is capturing intended target’s traffic. | Duplicate ARP replies, DHCP Offer anomalies, altered certificates |
| Exfiltration Prevention / Testing | Detect suspicious large file transfers or data leaving network boundaries. | Validate that simulated exfiltration over covert channels is undetected. | Large outbound TCP sessions, ICMP payload anomalies |
What about Wireless LANs?
Things are a little different for WLANs (Wi-Fi networks):
- Blue Teams focus on detection and prevention — spotting rogue devices, verifying encryption, monitoring associations.
- Red Teams focus on exploitation and bypass — capturing handshakes, setting up Evil Twins, or using weak channels for covert ops.
- Wireshark with a compatible wireless adapter in RFMON (monitor) mode is essential for both teams to capture management/control frames, not just data frames. I have a ton of info on this here.
So here are the use cases for WLANs:
| WLAN Use Case | Blue Team (Defensive) | Red Team (Offensive) | Example Packet Types / Targets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rogue AP Detection | Capture beacon/probe frames to spot unauthorized APs spoofing SSIDs. | Deploy rogue APs and verify they appear indistinguishable from legitimate APs. | Beacon frames, Probe responses |
| Client Association Monitoring | Verify that only authorized clients associate with APs. | Attempt to connect unauthorized clients and confirm handshake capture. | Association requests/responses, Authentication frames |
| WPA/WPA2/WPA3 Security Validation | Ensure 4-way handshakes are protected and key management is correct. | Capture 4-way handshake frames for offline cracking attempts. | EAPOL key exchanges |
| Evil Twin Detection / Testing | Identify SSIDs with same name but different BSSIDs and security settings. | Set up an Evil Twin AP and test victim association capture. | Beacon frames with mismatched security capabilities |
| Wireless Intrusion Detection | Monitor for deauthentication/disassociation floods or unusual frame rates. | Launch deauth/disassoc attacks and measure their visibility in captures. | Deauth frames, Disassoc frames |
| Hidden SSID Discovery | Detect hidden SSIDs when clients probe for known networks. | Use Wireshark to confirm hidden SSID broadcast suppression works or fails. | Probe requests with SSID element, Beacon with null SSID |
| Channel Utilization & Interference Analysis | Validate channel planning, noise levels, and throughput baselines. | Identify less-monitored channels for covert operations. | Beacon frames, QoS data frames, channel info in radiotap headers |
| Data Leakage Detection / Testing | Ensure no sensitive data is in unencrypted WLAN frames. | Capture unencrypted traffic on open or misconfigured networks. | Data frames from open SSIDs, ARP, HTTP |
Did I miss something?
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