Artisans need the right skills and tools to do their job and create masterpieces. While tools are an important motivator in the process of creating as many masterpieces as possible, the craft also requires the experience and expertise of the craftsman to work.
The penetration tester’s toolkit is much like a craftsman’s toolkit, with a variety of tools to choose from depending on the business goals.
In this article, we’ll look at some of the best free tools available for penetration testing. It is important to note that there is no direct comparison between these tools. The choice of these tools depends on the type of assessment by the penetration tester. Rather than competing with each other, these tools complement each other and help penetration testers conduct comprehensive security assessments.
Automated security tools are changing the game
Automated tools have completely changed the style of penetration testing, improving efficiency and testing cycles. Constant exploration and development make them more reliable and user-friendly tools. These tools do not address potential security vulnerabilities. Instead, they are effective at finding common security vulnerabilities and providing security recommendations for fixing them. Before you start looking for these free hacking tools online, you must evaluate the context of their use. This will help you effectively choose the right tool for you.
Introduction of 10 hacker tools
Here are 10 tools that are free to use online and that we highly recommend:
1. Fiddler
Category: Proxy service applications;
Fiddler is a free Web proxy tool that is browser and platform agnostic. It has some features to assist penetration testers, for example, allowing users to debug Web traffic from any system (compatible with almost any operating system on a PC), smartphone or tablet. From a penetration tester’s perspective, Fiddler is primarily used to intercept and decrypt HTTPS traffic. As the name suggests, users can easily modify (fiddle) and examine this traffic to identify vulnerabilities in the application at hand.
2. Nmap
Category: Port scanning tools;
Nmap, short for Network Mapper, is a free, open source application for Network scanning. It uses IP packets to audit networks. Nmap provides options for scanning IP, port, and host for a single IP, port, or range. It can also be used to scan subnets, identify services running on hosts, identify operating system versions running remote hosts, and find security vulnerabilities. It’s a very powerful tool. The output information can be used as a precursor to penetration testing efforts.
3. Wireshark
Category: Web vulnerability scanning tools;
Wireshark is an enterprise-class standard network protocol analysis tool. The tool essentially captures data packets as they move across the network and presents them to the end user in human-readable form. Wireshark allows users to capture data over a variety of network interfaces, including Ethernet, WiFi, NpCap adapters, Bluetooth, and token rings. It even allows users to capture data from a USB-connected network interface via the “USBPCAP” tool. In addition, Wireshark even comes with a console version called “Tshark.”
4. Metasploit
Category: Vulnerability exploitation framework;
The Metasploit framework provides a set of tools for performing penetration tests on systems. It is a versatile hacking framework that is widely used by penetration testers to mine vulnerabilities across platforms, gather information about existing vulnerabilities, and retest fix patches. The Metasploit framework is an open source project supported by over 200,000 contributors, which makes it a powerful framework for penetration testing, implementing vulnerability exploitation strategies, testing patches, conducting research, and continuously contributing to the updating of vulnerability databases.
5. Nikto
Category: Web vulnerability scanner;
Nikto is another tool that is well known in the penetration testing community. It is an open source tool provided under the GPL. Nikto provides several options in its interface to set up the host. It scans hosts for potential vulnerabilities, such as server configuration errors, host file and program security vulnerabilities, outdated programs that may be at risk, and version-specific issues that may pose a risk to the server. In addition, Nikto is available on OS X systems, supported by MacNikto as a service.
6. John the Ripper
Category: Password cracking tools;
John the Ripper (commonly known as “John” or JTR) is a very popular password cracking tool. JTR is primarily used to perform dictionary attacks to identify weak password vulnerabilities in networks. JTR is an offline password cracker that can be invoked locally or remotely. It also supports violence and Rainbow Crack attacks.
7. Burp Suite
Category: Network scanner;
One of the main uses of Burp Suite is to intercept all request and response information between the browser and the target application, and the free version can also be used to generate proof-of-concept CSRF (Cross-site forgery Request) attacks on specific requests. In addition, it has an application-aware crawler that can be used to map application-layer content. The paid version offers more features.
8. OpenVAS
Category: Vulnerability scanner;
OpenVAS is a vulnerability scanner that is an offshoot of the last free version of Nessus released in 2005. Currently, the free version of Nessus is only available in non-enterprise environments. Nessus remains a popular vulnerability scanner for security audit purposes, but the enterprise version now costs about $2,000 a year for a license. With OpenVAS, users can perform many vulnerability scans and create exportable reports that highlight the full scan results to create security policies.
9. Aircrack-ng
Category: Password cracking tools;
Aircrack-ng is a password cracking tool for 802.11a/ B /g wireless networks that supports raw Monitoring mode (RFMON). It continuously captures network traffic in monitoring mode, and once it has captured enough data, it starts running cracking algorithms to calculate WEP and WPA keys. Aircrack-ng suite contains a wide variety of wireless network cracking tools, Examples are Airodump-ng (network packet capture program), Airsnort-ng (encryption key cracking program), Airplay-ng (used to generate fake packets), and Airdecap-ng (captured file decryption tool).
10. Kismet
Category: Packet sniffing tools;
With the increasing frequency of wireless local area networks (Lans) being attacked by hackers, Kismet has become an important tool for WLAN intrusion detection and packet sniffing. It supports various WLAN network standards in the 802.11a/B/G family of ORIGINAL Monitoring Mode (RFMON). Kismet is an excellent lightweight tool that works in passive mode to identify the wireless network access point (AP) and client SSID. These SSIDs and access points can map to each other to identify any hidden or non-beacon networks. In addition, Kismet allows users to save traffic data in a Wireshark compatible format for further analysis.
conclusion
These tools free penetration testers from manual auditing. They also make the audit process faster and more efficient. Performing a robust penetration test evaluation does not mean simply choosing a tool from a list. Rather, it means assessing organizational results, as well as assessing information, requirements, and stakeholders involved. This process will help build an ideal strategy, including the use of tools to effectively and efficiently identify and address security vulnerabilities.
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