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Top 10 Pentesting Tools Used by Security Professionals and Ethical Hackers

June 14, 2022

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With cyberattacks on the rise, it’s more vital than ever for organizations to be able to test the strength of their systems. A penetration test or “pentest” is an efficient process when it comes to identifying and exploiting vulnerabilities within the organization’s network environment. But without the right tools, a penetration tester may overlook certain vulnerabilities in the system. Below are ten tools that white-hat hackers use to conduct effective penetration tests.

What Is Penetration Testing and Why Do We Use It?

The Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) defines penetration testing as a “controlled attack simulation that helps identify susceptibility to application, network, and operating system breaches. By locating vulnerabilities before the adversaries do, you can implement defensive strategies to protect your critical systems and information.”

Up until a few years ago, hacking required a lot of manually executed operations. Today, the rise of the Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) business model allows ordinary criminals to successfully carry out large and sophisticated attacks. Therefore, companies must regularly pentest their digital assets to comply with regulatory requirements and improve their overall security. Manual pentesting puts human experience over professional pentesting tools and techniques—and by using the right tools teams can perform realistic and hands-on simulated attacks on company networks and applications. 

Top Tools Commonly Used in Pentesting

Kali Linux

Kali is a Linux distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux, designed for computer security and managed by Offensive Security. One of the most beginner-friendly pentesting operating systems, Kali Linux comes with over 600 pre-installed security and vulnerability testing tools. The main alternatives are Parrot Security OS and BlackArch Linux.

SQLmap

SQLmap is an open-source penetration testing tool that automates the process of detecting and exploiting SQL injection flaws and taking over database servers. This type of scanning is only allowed with client consent. This tool is not very user-friendly, and it does not allow any kind of development.

John the Ripper

Distributed primarily in source code form, John the Ripper is an open-source password security auditing and password recovery tool. In cryptography, a brute force attack is when an attacker tries many passwords or passphrases in the hope of eventually guessing the correct one, and this tool can use a list of possible passwords and modify them to replace characters like “a” with “@” or “s” with “5”. 

Nmap

Developed for network scanning, Nmap contains a full set of features for probing computer networks—including host discovery as well as service and operating system detection. The Nmap scripting engine comes with over 170 NSE scripts and 20 libraries including firewall-bypass, super micro-ipmi-conf, oracle-brute-stealth, and ssl-heartbleed.

Wireshark

Used across many commercial and non-profit enterprises, government agencies, and educational institutions, Wireshark provides numerous built-in protocol dissectors—enabling it to identify different types of network traffic and to break them down into an easily readable format.

Backbox

Another important top tool for pentesting is Backbox.org—an easy-to-use complete desktop environment designed to simulate an attack on your network or applications. Backbox comes with its own software repositories that are constantly updated.

Nessus

Very popular among security professionals and ethical hackers, Nessus comes with a large library of vulnerabilities and tests to identify them. This vulnerability assessment solution relies on the response from target hosts to identify security holes, while its scans provide the penetration tester with a list of potential attack vectors.

Hashcat

Hashcat is another effective open-source password cracking tool used by ethical hacker communities. It is best suited for system recovery specialists, and for pentesting to crack encrypted passwords. 

WPScan

WPScan is a security scanner that helps scan known vulnerabilities in WordPress core, plugins, and themes. The vulnerability database is updated constantly as new information becomes available. WPScan is relatively easy to use, and its software is utilized by security experts all over the world. 

Burp Suite

Our list of the top pentesting tools ends with Burp Suite—an incredibly effective web vulnerability scanner. Unlike the other tools mentioned so far, Burp Suite is expensive. The cheapest Burp Suite Enterprise Edition plan starts at €6,015 per year, and it can reach a staggering €25,320 per year. According to their website, over 15,000 organizations use Burp Suite to secure their internet connections and speed up software delivery.

Conclusion 

With cyberattacks on the rise, organizations need to test their systems and try to root out as many vulnerabilities as they can. Security experts can prepare your business to handle real attacks by using the right penetration testing tool.