WiGLE - Wireless Geographic Logging Engine

2 min readArticle

WiGLE (wigle.net) is a crowdsourced database of wireless networks mapped by GPS location. People run wardriving tools (Kismet, NetStumbler, WiGLE Android app) and upload their findings. The database has hundreds of millions of networks worldwide. Extremely useful for OSINT and pre-engagement recon.

What You Can Do with WiGLE

Look up wireless networks at a specific address or GPS coordinate
Find historical AP data for a target location (even if currently offline)
Identify SSIDs used by a target organization across different locations
Track a specific MAC address's location history
Understand the wireless environment before a physical engagement

Accessing WiGLE

Web UI: https://wigle.net — free account for basic queries
API: REST API for programmatic access
Mobile app: WiGLE WiFi Wardriving (Android) for contributing data

Web UI Queries

Go to https://wigle.net
Create a free account
Use the map or search to look up:
- Address/location
- SSID
- BSSID (MAC address)
- Network name patterns

API Usage

python

import requests
from base64 import b64encode

# Auth header (base64 encoded API token)
api_name = "your_api_name"
api_token = "your_api_token"
auth = b64encode(f"{api_name}:{api_token}".encode()).decode()

headers = {"Authorization": f"Basic {auth}"}

# Search by SSID
response = requests.get(
    "https://api.wigle.net/api/v2/network/search",
    headers=headers,
    params={
        "ssid": "TargetCompanyWifi",
        "onlymine": False,
        "freenet": False
    }
)

data = response.json()
for network in data['results']:
    print(f"SSID: {network['ssid']}")
    print(f"BSSID: {network['netid']}")
    print(f"Location: {network['trilat']}, {network['trilong']}")
    print(f"Encryption: {network['encryption']}")
    print()

CLI with curl

bash

# Set your credentials
API_NAME="your_api_name"
API_TOKEN="your_token"
AUTH=$(echo -n "$API_NAME:$API_TOKEN" | base64)

# Search by SSID
curl -s -H "Authorization: Basic $AUTH" \
  "https://api.wigle.net/api/v2/network/search?ssid=TargetSSID" | jq .

# Search by BSSID
curl -s -H "Authorization: Basic $AUTH" \
  "https://api.wigle.net/api/v2/network/search?netid=AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF" | jq .

OSINT Use Cases

Pre-engagement recon: Find target's SSIDs and APs before arriving on-site
Location verification: Confirm a target's physical location using their AP BSSIDs
Historical data: See what networks existed at a location in the past
Client detection: Match discovered SSIDs to a company
Security assessment scope: Enumerate all APs belonging to an organization

WiGLE + Kismet Integration

Kismet can automatically upload war drive data to WiGLE:

shell

# In kismet.conf
wigle_api_key=your_api_key
wigle_enabled=true

Things to Note

Data is crowdsourced — accuracy varies
Some data is old (networks may have moved/changed)
Free accounts have query limits — API paid tiers have more
All data uploaded is public by default
Privacy concerns: your home AP is probably in here