Ethical Hacking is an essential part of cyber security nowadays. Many big companies and organizations use it to maintain the security and integrity of their employees. The primary purpose of ethical Hacking is to find the vulnerabilities and exploitations of their systems. If you want to become a professional in ethical Hacking, then you must use ethical hacking tools. If you want to learn about ethical hacking tools, this article is beneficial for you. You can also learn about how you can use and install these tools.
Top 9 Ethical Hacking tools and Software
1. NMAP
NMAP stands for “Network Mapper.” It is free of cost and created by Gordon Lyon in 1997. It is used for network exploration, port scanners,s and security scanners. You can detect vulnerabilities in any network and open ports on any virtual hosts using NMAP. It is actually a command-line tool.
It was designed for operating systems such as Linux and Unix. It has the ability for quick scanning devices. Devices like routers, servers, mobile devices, etc. are easily scanned. NMAP is capable of providing complete information about the device in use. Information like the OS, version, and build number. This helps the hackers to penetrate easily through the device.
2. Nessus
Nessus is a vulnerability tracker used by ethical hackers. Nessus is able to track weak passwords, misconfigurations, unpatched services, and vulnerabilities. It is widely used in non-enterprise versions.
Nessus is not recommended for active hacking purposes and attacks. It works passively. A basic system user or administrator can use it for a single device. You can even write custom tests in the language provided by the system. You even get many plug-ins and widgets for support.
3. Kismet
The third tool in the list is Kismet. It is a free WIDS(Wireless Intrusion Detection) software. It is a wireless network detector and acts as a sniffer. It also works passively. Wireless clients and access points are both very easily detectable. It runs primarily on Linus OS. It also supports many wireless scanning plugins, including Bluetooth, DECT, etc.
4. Metasploit
Metasploit is an open-source testing tool that H.D. Moore developed. It is primarily used for penetrating testing purposes. You get the free version and also, Metasploit pro which is paid version. You get 14 days trial in this pro version. It is used for known security vulnerabilities and also for IDS signature development. Many platforms are supported. You can also build the exploit code against the remote machines.
5. Wireshark
It is a free open-source software used as a packet analyzer. It was founded by Gerald Combs in 2006. It was named as ethereal when it was first built. You can perform deep inspections of many protocols. It is capable of working on active and live captures. Using Wireshark you export the analysis reports into many different formats such as XML, CSV, Plaintext, and PostScript. You can also perform offline analysis on many platforms.
6. Netsparker
It was developed in 2009 by Ferruh Mavituna, Mark Lane, and Peter Edgeler. It is capable of exploiting the SQL injections automatically and XSS. It works across many websites, web applications, and APIs to find faults. You use NetSparker to identify the real and affecting vulnerabilities. You can check for around 1000 web apps in just 24 hours. It can also detect web page rules, 404 errors, and many such protocols.
7. Aircrack-Ng
The 7th tool in the list is Aircrack-Ng. It is used to keep your wifi network safe and secure, which can be done by Aircrack-ng tool. It is capable of finding unauthorized access. Fake access points, replay attacks, and many more such vulnerabilities are also possible. You can export reports to text files easily.
Aircrack is one of the most used software for ethical hacking. Checking of wifi cards, driver capabilities, and speed track are also supported, along with the fragmentation attacks. The use of dictionary attacks to crack WPA-2PSK and WEP keys is also supported. Linux, Windows, Solaris, and many other OS support Aircrack.
8. Acunetix
It is also developed by Ferruh Mavituna, the developer of Netsparker(now known as Invicti). It is a fully automated ethical hacking tool that is used to detect vulnerabilities and for reporting purposes. It supports JavaScript, HTML, and many other web applications. So, auditing complex applications and web pages become possible too. We can find SQL vulnerabilities along with the XSS and 4500+ other vulnerabilities present online.
It is a very fast, scalable, and portable tool. Acunetix is capable of prioritizing risks based on the data given. It is also available as a cloud solution.
9. Maltego
Maltego is available in 3 editions. The community edition is free; then we have classic for $999 and XL for $1999. You can get many server products like CTAS, Comms, ITDS, and many others for the price of $4000. This includes training and learning as well. You can perform real-time data mining and gathering on the systems to be breached.
You get the graphical representations and support to present the vulnerabilities and weak points on the network. Graphical images are easy to interpret and display almost everything. If you are working with large graphs, Maltego is recommended.
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Conclusion
Ethical hacking has become a necessary field in the past few years. Ethical hacking is necessary to keep the company/organization safe and secure. You can hire a freelancer to perform tests or learn for yourself too. To perform the testing, certain software and tools are required. To perform testing, you need to learn some ethical hacking tools and software. Some of these are mentioned in the article above. You can refer to this article to learn about and prepare for ethical hacking tests.