What’s Penetration Testing ?

Pen tests can be automated with software applications or they can be performed manually. Either way, the process includes gathering information about the target before the test (reconnaissance), identifying possible entry points, attempting to break in (either virtually or for real) and reporting back the findings.

The main objective of penetration testing is to determine security weaknesses. A pen test can also be used to test an organization’s security policy compliance, its employees’ security awareness and the organization’s ability to identify and respond to security incidents.

Penetration tests are sometimes called white hat attacks because in a pen test, the good guys are attempting to break in.

What’s Kali Linux ?

Kali Linux is a Debian-based Linux distribution aimed at advanced Penetration Testing and Security Auditing. Kali contains several hundred tools aimed at various information security tasks, such as  Penetration Testing, Forensics and Reverse Engineering. Kali Linux is developed, funded and maintained by Offensive Security, a leading information security training company.

Top 20 Penetration Testing Tool In Kali linux 2.0

1. Metasploit

This is the most advanced and popular Framework that can be used to for pen-testing. It is based on the concept of ‘exploit’ which is a code that can surpass the security measures and enter a certain system. If entered, it runs a ‘payload’, a code that performs operations on a target machine, thus creating the perfect framework for penetration testing.

It can be used on web applications, networks, servers etc. It has a command-line and a GUI clickable interface, works on Linux, Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. This is a commercial product, although there might be free limited trials available.

2. Armitage

Armitage is a scriptable red team collaboration tool for Metasploit that visualizes targets, recommends exploits, and exposes the advanced post-exploitation features in the framework.

Through one Metasploit instance, your team will:

• Use the same sessions
• Share hosts, captured data, and downloaded files
• Communicate through a shared event log.
• Run bots to automate red team tasks.

3. Wireshark

This is basically a network protocol analyzer –popular for providing the minutest details about your network protocols, packet information, decryption etc. It can be used on Windows, Linux, OS X, Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and many other systems. The information that is retrieved via this tool can be viewed through a GUI, or the TTY-mode TShark utility.

4. Burpsuite

Burp suite is also essentially a scanner (with a limited “intruder” tool for attacks), although many security testing specialists swear that pen-testing without this tool is unimaginable. The tool is not free, but very cost effective. Take a look at it on below download page. It mainly works wonders with intercepting proxy, crawling content and functionality, web application scanning etc.  You can use this on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux environments.

5. Acunetix

Acunetix is essentially a web vulnerability scanner targeted at web applications. It provides SQL injection, cross site scripting testing, PCI compliance reports etc. along with identifying a multitude of vulnerabilities. While this is among the more ‘pricey’ tools.

6. John The Ripper

Another password cracker in line is, John the Ripper. This tool works on most of the environments, although it’s primarily for UNIX systems. It is considered one of the fastest tools in this genre. Password hash code and strength-checking code are also made available to be integrated to your own software/code which I think is very unique. This tool comes in a pro and free form.

7. Social Engineer Toolkit

The Social-Engineer Toolkit (SET) is a unique tool in terms that the attacks are targeted at the human element than on the system element. It has features that let you send emails, java applets, etc containing the attack code. It goes without saying that this tool is to be used very carefully and only for ‘white-hat’ reasons.  It has a command-line interface, works on Linux, Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.

8. Nmap

“Network Mapper” though not necessarily a pen-testing tool, it is a must-have for the ethical hackers. This is a very popular tool that predominantly aids in understanding the characteristics of any target network. The characteristics can include: host, services, OS, packet filters/firewalls etc.  It works on most of the environments and is open sourced.

9. BeEF

BeEF is short for The Browser Exploitation Framework. It is a penetration testing tool that focuses on the web browser- what this means is that, it takes advantage of the fact that an open web-browser is the window(or crack) into a target system and designs its attacks to go on from this point on . It has a GUI interface, works on Linux, Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.

10. Aircrack-ng

Aircrack-ng is an 802.11 WEP and WPA-PSK keys cracking program that can recover keys once enough data packets have been captured. It implements the standard FMS attack along with some optimizations like KoreK attacks, as well as the PTW attack, thus making the attack much faster compared to other WEP cracking tools.

In fact, Aircrack-ng is a set of tools for auditing wireless networks.

11. Sqlmap

Sqlmap is again a good open source pen testing tool. This tool is mainly used for detecting and exploiting SQL injection issues in an application and hacking over of database servers. It comes with command-line interface. Platform: Linux, Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows are supported platforms.

12. Ettercap

Ettercap is a free and open source network security tool for man-in-the-middle attacks on LAN. It can be used for computer network protocol analysis and security auditing. It runs on various Unix-like operating systems including Linux, Mac OS X, BSD and Solaris, and on Microsoft Windows.

13. Hydra

Hydra is a parallelized login cracker which supports numerous protocols to attack. It is very fast and flexible, and new modules are easy to add. This tool makes it possible for researchers and security consultants to show how easy it would be to gain unauthorized access to a system remotely.

It supports: Cisco AAA, Cisco auth, Cisco enable, CVS, FTP, HTTP(S)-FORM-GET, HTTP(S)-FORM-POST, HTTP(S)-GET, HTTP(S)-HEAD, HTTP-Proxy, ICQ, IMAP, IRC, LDAP, MS-SQL, MySQL, NNTP, Oracle Listener, Oracle SID, PC-Anywhere, PC-NFS, POP3, PostgreSQL, RDP, Rexec, Rlogin, Rsh, SIP, SMB(NT), SMTP, SMTP Enum, SNMP v1+v2+v3, SOCKS5, SSH (v1 and v2), SSHKEY, Subversion, Teamspeak (TS2), Telnet, VMware-Auth, VNC and XMPP.

14. Maltego

Maltego is a program built into Kali Linux that lets you do reconnaissance on any person, by scraping up data from all publicly available areas of the Internets. Maltego is used for information gathering and data-mining, and can be useful for anyone who needs to gather data on a person or company

15. Nikto

Nikto is an Open Source (GPL) web server scanner which performs comprehensive tests against web servers for multiple items, including over 6400 potentially dangerous files/CGIs, checks for outdated versions of over 1200 servers, and version specific problems on over 270 servers.

16. Sqlninja

Sqlninja, as the name indicates is all about taking over the DB server using SQL injection in any environment. This product by itself claims to be not so stable its popularity indicates how robust it is already with the DB related vulnerability exploitation. It has a command-line interface, works on Linux, Apple Mac OS X and not on Microsoft Windows.

17. HaCoder.py

HaCoder.py is Python based FUD RAT (fully undetectable remote administration tool) used for remote control infected PC. It’s coded by Luka Sikic using Python socket programming. Credits goes to Technic Dynamic for idea about AES Encrypted communication between infected PC and control machine. Download Here.

18. CORE Impact

CORE Impact Pro can be used to test mobile device penetration, network/network devise penetration, password identification and cracking, etc. It has a command-line and a GUI clickable interface, works Microsoft Windows. This is one of the expensive tools in this line.

19. Canvas

Immunity’s CANVAS is a widely used tool that contains more than 400 exploits and multiple payload options. It renders itself useful for web applications, wireless systems, networks etc. It has a command-line and GUI interface, works on Linux, Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. It is not free of charge and can more information can be found at below page.

20. Retina

As opposed to a certain application or a server, Retina targets the entire environment at a particular company/firm. It comes as a package called Retina Community. It is a commercial product and is more of a vulnerability management tool more than a pen-testing tool. It works on having scheduled assessments and presenting results. Check out more about this package at below page.