Are Wi-Fi scanning programs reliable?

Question

Recently, I scanned some Wi-Fi networks with wifite tool in Kali. This tool said that one of the available Wi-Fi networks is secured with WPA2. Ten minutes later, I scanned these Wi-Fi networks again. In this scan, wifite said the same network is secured with WEP. I scanned these networks again using Fern Wi-Fi cracker. In this state I saw that the network is secured by WPA. I'm confused with these observation. Now my question is:

Do security methods change over the time or are these programs are unreliable?

Answer 1

That is very weird. The tools shouldn't lie. The networks are not changing its configuration by theirselves. Maybe the same network changed its config (done manually by network's owner). Anyway, If you want to compare results you can check with different tools. I can recommend to you some of them (scanner tools) for Linux and Windows:

• airodump-ng <- is in aircrack suite
• kismet
• inssider <- is not free
• netstumbler <- pretty old
• acrylic <- free version is only scanner

Of course there are a lot of tools to audit wireless networks, not only for scanning. You can check some of my favourites:

• airgeddon <- wpa/wpa2, wps, DoS, handshake capture, Evil Twin, etc...
• linset <- Evil Twin
• wifihacker <- wep, wpa/wpa2, wps

Answer 2

Most WLANs are configured for both WPA and WPA2 by default ( WPA(1) is not broken, but WPA2 is stronger ) - That's the reason you are seeing both. Older systems and IoTs that need a firmware/hardware upgrade wouldn't be able to connect otherwise.