What is Penetration Testing
Penetration testing, commonly referred to as pen testing, involves an authorized simulation of a cyber attack on a computer system to uncover exploitable vulnerabilities. This process is conducted by ethical hackers who simulate a potential unauthorized attack to assess the system’s response and reveal any weaknesses or flaws.
By subjecting your company’s defenses to simulated attacks, cyber security testing enables you to refine your security measures. A penetration test not only focuses on identifying vulnerabilities but also helps highlight strengths, contributing to a comprehensive risk assessment for auditing purposes. We recommend this guide to learn more about what penetration testing is.
In this guide, we explore some of the top penetration testing tools that are essential for your arsenal. These tools play a crucial role in pinpointing security weaknesses in servers, networks, or web applications. Given that they facilitate the identification of unknown vulnerabilities in both networks and software applications, these tools are indispensable in preventing potential security breaches.
Below is a list of the top Penetration testing Tools
1. Network Mapper (Nmap)
Nmap is an open source and free utility for network security auditing and network discovery. Most network administrators use it for tasks such as network inventory monitoring services and host uptime. It uses raw IP packets to determine hosts that are available on the network, and the services the hosts are providing. From IDS evasion to OS detection, Network Mapper is an essential tool for both large and small gigs.
2. Aircrack-ng
Aircrack-ng is a complete suite of tools to asses your wifi network security. In particular, it focuses on different areas of wifi security including:
Testing: Checking WiFi driver capabilities and cards, both injection and capture.
Attacking: Replay fake access points and attacks.
Monitoring: It help monitor packet capture and export of data to text files for further processing by third-party software. Besides, you can use it crack WPA PSK and WEP.
3. Wifiphiser
This is a rogue access point tool. It enables automated phishing attacks against wireless networks. A full assessment using Wfiphisher may lead to credential harvesting and actual infection.
4. Netsparker
It is an easy to use web application security scanner. It can automatically find XSS and SQL injection vulnerabilities in your web applications and service. Additionally, it is available in both SAAS or on-premise solution.
5.Metasploit
Metasploit is one of the most advanced and popular frameworks. The tool is open source, and it is based on the precepts of “exploit”; hence, you can pass a code that breaches the security and enters a system. Once the code enters the system, it runs a payload on the target machine and creates a perfect framework for penetration. Metasploit can be used in applications, network, and servers.
6. SQLmap
SQLmap is an automatic database, and SQL injection takes over the tool. It supports all kind of database platforms ranging from MySQL, Access, PostgreSQL, MSSQL, and SQLite.
7. CrackMapExec
Also known as CME, it is a post exploitation tool that gives you the leverage to automate the tasks of assessing the security of a vast Active directory network.
The tool works by leaving behind the land by abusing the built-in AD features to achieve functionality and allow it to evade most endpoint protection.
8. PowerSploit
PowerSploit is a collection of modules that are used during assessment. In windows, the modules are the PowerShell. Some of its features include exfiltration, script modification, code execution and Av bypass.
9. Social Engineer Toolkit (SET)
SET is a pen testing framework geared towards social engineering. SET is a favorite tool among hackers and at one point, it was featured on TV and was actively involved in USA Network robot.
10. Acunetix
This is a fully automated pen testing tool. It is a web-based security application scanner. It accurately scans HTML5, single page applications and Javascript.
Acunetix can be used to audit multiple authenticated web pages to issue compliance and management reports on a vast array f network vulnerabilities.
