Penetration testing has become an essential part of the security verification process. While it’s great that there are many penetration testing tools to choose from, with so many that perform similar functions it can become confusing which tools provide you the best value for your time.
We are going to review some of the best pentesting tools available to pentesters today and organize them by category.
HackPorts was developed as a penetration testing framework with accompanying tools and exploits that run natively on Mac platforms. HackPorts is a ‘super-project’ that leverages existing code porting efforts, security professionals can now use hundreds of penetration tools on Mac systems without the need for Virtual Machines. May 08, 2020 15 Best Bootable USB Tools For Windows, Linux and MAC OS. Here is a list of the best programs with which we can create bootable USB drives from different operating systems, either in Windows 10 or GNU/Linux or macOS.
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HackPorts was developed as a penetration testing framework with accompanying tools and exploits that run natively on Mac platforms. HackPorts is a ‘super-project’ that leverages existing code porting efforts, security professionals can now use hundreds of penetration tools on Mac systems without the need for Virtual Machines. BackTrack Linux is a great option and one of the most common platforms for running pen testing tools. If you are a Mac user, then you would most likely run a virtual machine of BackTrack Linux. While this is a great option, sometimes it is nice to have your tools running on the native operating system of. Mar 07, 2016 While open source pentest tool Scapy runs natively on Linux, it can be installed on Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, MAC OX, OpenBSD and Windows. Optional packages include plotting, 3D graphics, WEP. Jun 06, 2020 This distro offers you a wide range of penetration and forensic tools. Bugtraq is harder to install but runs as a live DVD or from a USB Drive. If we talk about the tools, Bugtraq offers a wide range of tools in different branches. You would find mobile forensic tools, malware testing tools, audit tools for GSM, wireless tools, etc.
“This really opened my eyes to AD security in a way defensive work never did.”
Ways to Best Use Penetration Testing Tools
While pentesting tools are usually used in the context of a larger security assessment of a network or service, there’s nothing holding back sysadmin’s or developers from deploying the exact same tools to validate the strength of their own work.
Pentesting Tools For Mac
Top Pentesting Tools
Below is a list of the best pentesting tools to tackle different penetration testing tasks. We also included what each tool is best used for and which platforms they’re supported on.
1. Powershell-Suite
The PowerShell-suite is a collection of PowerShell scripts that extract information about the handles, processes, DLLs, and many other aspects of Windows machines. By scripting together specific tasks, you can quickly navigate and check which systems on a network are vulnerable to exploit.
- Best Used For: Easily automated tasks to discover weak exploitable assets on a network.
- Supported Platforms: Windows
2. Zmap
Zmap is a lightweight network scanner that is capable of scanning everything from a home network to the entire Internet. This free network scanner is best used to gather baseline details about a network. If you only have an IP range to go off of, use to get a lay of the land quickly.
- Best Used For Information gathering and initial triage of the attack landscape.
- Supported Platforms: Zmap is supported on various Linux platforms and macOS
3. Xray
Xray is an excellent network mapping tool that uses the OSINT framework to help guide its tactics. Xray uses wordlists, DNS requests, and any API keys to help identify open ports on a network from the outside looking in.
- Best Used For: Pentesters tasked with gaining access to a network with no help
- Supported Platforms: Linux and Windows
4. SimplyEmail
SimplyEmail is an email recon tool used to help gather associated information found on the internet based on someone’s email address. SimplyEmail is based on the harvester solution and works to search the internet for any data that can help provide intelligence around any given email address.
- Best Used For Pentesters looking to create account lists for enterprise testing engagements.
- Supported Platforms: Docker, Kali, Debian, Ubuntu, macOS
5. Wireshark
Wireshark is likely the most widely used network protocol analyzer across the world. Network traffic captured via Wireshark can show what protocols and systems are live, what accounts are most active, and allow attackers to intercept sensitive data.
- Best Used For Deep level network visibility into communications.
- Supported Platforms: Windows, Linux, macOS, Solaris
6. Hashcat
Hashcat is one of the fastest password recovery tools to date. By downloading the Suite version, you have access to the password recovery tool, a word generator, and a password cracking element. Dictionary, combination, brute-force, rule-based, toggle-case, and Hybrid password attacks are all fully supported. Best of all is hashcat has a great online community to help support the tool with patching, a WiKi page, and walkthroughs.
- Best Used For Up and coming pentesters or system recovery specialists looking for the best password recovery tool to stake a claim in their business.
- Supported Platforms: Linux, Windows, and macOS
7. John the Ripper
John the Ripper is the original password cracking tool. Its sole purpose is to find weak passwords on a given system and expose them. John the Ripper is a pentesting tool that can be used for both a security and a compliance perspective. John is famous for its ability to expose weak passwords within a short timeframe quickly.
- Best Used For: Password cracking for novices
- Supported Platforms: Windows, Unix, macOS, Windows
8. Hydra
Hydra is another password cracking tool but with a twist. Hydra is the only password pentesting tool that supports multiple protocols and parallel connections at once. This feature allows a penetration tester to attempt to crack numerous passwords on different systems at the same time without losing connection if unbeaten.
- Best Used For: Password cracking for professionals
- Supported Platforms: Linux, Windows, Solaris, macOS
9. Aircrack-ng
Aircrack-ng is a wireless network security tool that is an all in one package for penetration testing. Aircrack-ng has four primary functions that make it the ultimate standout in its class; It does monitoring of network packets, attacking via packet injection, testing of WiFi capabilities, and finally, password cracking.
- Best Used For Command-line heavy users that prefer to script out attacks or defense measures.
- Supported Platforms: Windows, OS X Solaris, Linux
10. Burp Suite
For pentesting web applications, Burp Suite is your go-to tool. Incorporating not only vulnerability scanning but Fully Proxy capturing and command injection services as well. Burps UI is fully optimized for the working professional with built-in profiles to allow you to save your configurations on a per-job basis.
- Best Used For Enterprise professionals in charge of application security
- Supported Platforms: Windows, macOS, and Linux
11. Metasploit
Comparable to Burp Suite, Metasploit started as an open-source solution and has gained some traction over the years. Some of the tasks that can be accomplished in Metasploit from a pentesting perspective include vulnerability scanning, listening, exploiting known vulnerabilities, evidence collection, and project reporting.
- Best Used For Pentesters managing several different companies at once or have multiple applications to be tested.
- Supported Platforms: Windows, macOS, and Linux
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12. Nikto
Nikto is a loud and proud web application scanning solution. It is open-source and contains features like a web server scanner, a pre-packaged list of potentially dangerous files, and a misconfiguration checker as well. Nikto is not stealthy, nor does it try to be; it doesn’t try to hide its presence, but it will get the job done.
- Best Used For Enterprise Pentesters or SOCs that have the full permission to scan systems in a purple team type exercise. Best used to help build out monitoring around scanning activity within a SOC environment.
- Supported Platforms: Windows and Linux
13. Fuzzdb
Fuzzdb is a special kind of penetration testing tool as it contains pre-built attack payloads to run against web applications to discover if vulnerabilities are genuinely exploitable. On top of being able to simulate attack patterns, Fuzzdb can run discovery scans and perform analysis on the responses received from these scans to narrow better the focus of where vulnerabilities exist.
- Best Used For Pentesting professionals that are hired to attempt to exploit vulnerabilities.
- Supported Platforms: Windows, Linux, and macOS
14. NMAP/ZenMap
NMAP is a pentesters best friend. This network security mapping tool gives you a quick look at the open ports on any given network. NMAP commands allow you to dig into the feasibility of specific network-level vulnerabilities. NMAP also has a friendly GUI interface called ZenMap that is easy to use for any skill level. NMAP also comes with a debugging tool, a comparison tool for comparing scan results, and a packet generation tool as well.
- Best Used For: All skill level pentesters or security professionals to validate and test vulnerability management.
- Supported Platforms: Linux, Microsoft Windows, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, IRIX, Mac OS X, HP-UX, NetBSD, Sun OS, and Amiga
15. sqlmap
Sqlmap is an open-source penetration tool that helps bring validity to possible SQL injection flaws that may affect your database servers. This automated testing tool comes with a slew of detailed features, including DB fingerprinting, remote commands, and its detection engine.
- Best Used For Expert Pentesters strictly focusing on exploiting databases.
- Supported Platforms: MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access, IBM DB2, SQLite, Firebird, Sybase and SAP MaxDB
16. MobSF
For mobile platform vulnerability discovery, MobSF is your tool. This hacking tool is an all in one platform for pen-testing and vulnerability discovery via static and dynamic application analysis. MobSF also has built-in REST APIs to provide an integrated experience into your development pipeline. ModSF is ultimately a vulnerability scanner for mobile applications.
- Best Used For Enterprise or individual mobile application vulnerability pentesting.
- Supported Platforms: Android, iOS, and Windows
17. Linux-Exploit-Suggester
Linux-Exploit-Suggester is an excellent tool for on the fly security testing of Linux systems without dealing with the overhead of a beefy vulnerability scanner. LES was created for system admins to get a quick sense of the. Based on its lightweight compatibility, LES is a great vulnerability catalog for pentesters looking to get a quick overview of a systems configuration, without creating too much noise via resource consumption.
- Best Used For: Pentesters to quickly find a potential host that is vulnerable to start crafting an exploit without drawing too much attention to themselves.
- Supported Platforms: Linux
18. Apktool
Apktool is for those Pentesters or security researchers that are attempting to reverse engineer malware to determine a way to better protect against it. Apktool only supports 3rd party, android applications. Apktool’s feature set includes being able to disassemble and reassemble to original form, debugging and help to automate repetitive tasks.
- Best Used For Pentesters looking to craft a custom payload specific to a company’s android application or security researchers looking to find a fix for a known android vulnerability.
- Supported Platforms: Android
19. Resource Hacker
Resource Hacker is a windows specific file editor that allows anyone to decompile a windows file and recompile it at a later time. The great thing about this reverse engineering tool is that it comes with a GUI interface that makes it easy for novice pentesters to learn and use.
- Best Used For Novice file editor for windows files.
- Supported Platforms: Windows
20. IDA
IDA is the Kleenex of disassembler tools as it is widely supported and used in commercial validation testing. IDA is interactive as a disassembler as well as a debugger, thus providing you with a whole solution as a professional. Best of all, it supports all major OS system types.
- Best Used For Professional level malware disassembly.
- Supported Platforms: Windows, Linux, macOS
21. Radare
Lastly, we have Radare, which is one of the most widely accepted and versatile disassembly tools available. Some of its features include multiple OS and mobile OS support, file system forensics, data carving capabilities, and visualizing data structures.
- Best Used For: experienced pentesters who have a vast knowledge of multiple platforms.
- Supported Platforms: Linux, *BSD, Windows, OSX, Android, iOS, Solaris and Haiku
22. Email or Chat Software
If it is available to you, the best way to send out compromised data is through the account you compromised in the first place. Most of the time you will have the ability to use the user’s account to send ether emails out or you could try to use the installed enterprise chat solution in place to accomplish the same outcome. For pentesters trying to remain anonymous, this is a great technique as long as you limit the size of the emails so that it isn’t detected as an anomaly by any DLP solution that might be watching.
- Best Used For: Pentesters trying to remain anonymous and test the detection capabilities of any DLP solutions in place.
- Supported Platforms: Supported on most OS
23. Srm
Srm stands for Secure remove, and it takes the hassle out, ensuring a file is entirely removed from a system. As a pentester, Srm is great for removing temporary files created while accessing a system, If your intent is to cover up your tracks, Srm is the tool required to remove any rootkit files that may have been used during the exploit process. Srm removes and rewrites over the data location to ensure all traces of the data are thoroughly wiped from the system. Best of all, it is a command-line program that is quick to set up and use.
- Best Used For: permanent file deletion, not even forensics software can recover.
- Supported Platforms: Unix and Windows
24. Catfish
Catfish is a pentesting tool that is used by many to quickly search for specific files that tend to contain sensitive data or can provide them with additional access (like a password file). Catfish allows the end-user to explore a system for any files containing a particular string within its name. It is simple but highly effective at what it does.
- Best Used For Quick file name searching on a machine.
- Supported Platforms: Linux based OS
Performing penetration tests is an essential part of verifying that systems are secure. Using the right penetration testing tools saves time and helps to improve your overall security posture.
In the Cybersecurity world today, there is one methodology that has proven to be quite effective in determining the security vulnerabilities of any business entity: Penetration Testing. It can be explicitly defined as follows:
“It is the practice of testing a computer system, network, or web application, to find the vulnerabilities that an attacker can exploit.”
(SOURCE: http://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/definition/penetration-testing)
Pen Testing can be done either manually or via the use of automated software packages, and it typically involves four primary steps:
- Gathering as much information and data as possible about the target before the actual test is conducted;
- Determining any known and unknown entry points;
- Attempting the actual Cyber-attack (or break in);
- Reporting the findings back to the relevant parties.
There is no doubt that all of these steps are important, but it is the last one which is probably the most crucial-after all, you need to know the results and interpret them to take the corrective actions needed. In this article, we examine some of the top Pen Testing Tools with robust reporting features that you and your team can use.
- Metasploit:
Currently, this is the most widely used Pen Testing tool. The name “Metasploit” comes from the term exploit. In other words, this software package can literally “exploit” software code of any kind of application and can even deliver a specific payload which can examine the vulnerabilities and the weaknesses of the target, which go unnoticed. This tool can be used across a wide variety of environments, which includes both hardware and software platforms. It can also run on Open Source (Linux, Apache, etc.) and Closed Source Operating Systems (Apple iOS and OS X, Windows, etc.).
The reporting tools that come with Metasploit are highly customizable, and more detail on how to use them can be seen at this link:
Another example of creating a Metasploit report is illustrated in the screenshot below:
This example makes use of what is known as “Jasper Reports.” To use this tool, you should be familiar with XML, Java, and SQL.
Details on using Jasper Reports for your use can be seen at this link:
Metasploit can be downloaded for free here:
- Nessus:
This is also another prevalent Pen Testing tool, as it has over 1.6 million users worldwide, and almost 25,000 business entities that make use of it. Here are some of the key features of it:
- It has a strong level of ease of use;
- It has a comprehensive detection platform: It can do data searches, IP Address scans (an unlimited amount), Web Server and Web-based applications scans, etc.;
- It can work in both Linux and Windows-based environments.
It is primary “sweet spot” is in conducting compliance checks, to make sure that your client is up to “snuff” with the latest federal mandates and regulations. Apart from being a Pen Testing tool, it is also deemed to be one of the most “robust” vulnerability identifier technologies that are available on the market today.
The reports that can be can be created are sorted out by the host that is being examined, and also by the specific Pen Testing feature that is being used. Further details on the reporting tools found in Nessus can be seen at this link:
An example of the type of reports that can be generated is illustrated below:
Some of the reports that can be generated include:
- TCP Metrics Reports;
- VPN Summary Reports;
- System Configuration Reports;
- USB Device Auditing and Monitoring;
- Errors and Warning Reports.
It comes with a 7-day free trial period, and it can be downloaded here:
After the trial period is over, the annual subscription rate is $2,190 per year.
- Wireshark:
Although this tool can be used in a wide variety of Pen Testing environments, it has one primary purpose: The examination of network protocols, an analysis of the data and information that reside in the data packets, and any kind of encryption and decryption protocols that are used. Wireshark is used heavily by both the commercial and the non-commercial sectors, not-for-profit agencies, and even government entities as well.
Wireshark uses charts and views primarily as its main reporting functionalities. Specific details about it can be seen at this link:
Best of all, Wireshark can be used across an entire array of platforms, which include the following:
- Windows
- Linux
- Apple OS X
- Solaris
- Free BSD
- Net BSD
One of the robust reporting tools for Wireshark is its “GeoIP” tool. With this, you can get a detailed view of IP addresses being examined worldwide. This is illustrated below:
The details on how to use this reporting tool can be seen here at this link:
Wireshark can be purchased at this link:
- Burpsuite:
This tool is classified as an overall scanner, and many Pen Testers attest to how powerful it is when scanning for weaknesses and holes. For instance, it can scan for over 100 vulnerabilities, which include the following:
- SQL code injection;
- Cross-site scripting;
- Flash cross-domain policies;
- Cleartext submission of passwords;
Its reporting tools come with the following functionalities:
- This displays all of the content which has been discovered at those points that are being Pen Tested. This is all displayed in a tree-like fashion, which shows all of the vulnerabilities found as well as their severity levels. This is illustrated below:Ethical Hacking Training – Resources (InfoSec)
- Customized Advisories:This feature details the full content about the Security vulnerabilities which have been found, as a well as displaying a plan as to how to remedy them. An example of this is as follows:
- Each Security vulnerability and weakness which has been discovered comes with the actual evidence to support it. This is particularly useful for software developers to quickly discover the holes and backdoors in the source code that they create, and how it should be fixed to the best extent possible.
- Easy to understand reports:All of the data that is found in each scan can be created into an HTML format with the most relevant information highlighted. This is an example:
A trial version of Burpsuite can be downloaded at this link; but after that expires, the costs are $349.00 per year per user:
- Retina:
Unlike the other Pen Testing tools as described in this article, this one actually scans for the entire infrastructure of a business or a corporation. Their tools are grouped under one category called the “Retina Community.” It can actually be viewed more as a Vulnerability Management platform. For example, it can scan for the following categories within an organization:
- Network security;
- Vulnerability assessments for Cloud-based assets;
- Web Security protection and scanning;
- Specific details about the reporting tools can be seen at this link:
However, in general, it consists of the following features:
- Multi-tiered architecture: The framework for each report is based upon the specificities of what is actually being Pen Tested;
- Threat Analytics dashboard: This allows you to prioritize and rank those Cyber threats from the most severe to the least possible risk of exposure;
- Resource Planning: This allows your team to build specific “what if” scenarios to plan for the proper allocation of resources during the actual Pen Testing cycle;
- Retina contains over 270+ customized reporting templates which can be tailored to the needs of your client to display the information and data which has been collected accurately;
- Compliance reporting: Make sure your client comes into compliance with Federal regulations such as HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, etc.;
- Heat maps: You can display to your client in just a few seconds as to what the most vulnerable assets are in their IT infrastructure.
Here is an example of a Risk Matrix and Heat Report:
Here is an example of a Vulnerability and Threat Report:
Here is an example of a Remediation Analysis Report:
There is a limited free trial of Retina, but after that expires, you will need to contact them to request a specific price quote. It can be downloaded at this link:
Overall, this article has examined some of the top Pen Testing tools (as well as their reporting features) which are being used the most thus far. Obviously, there is a quite a bit out there that you and your team can choose from. However, deciding the specific Pen Tool(s) to be used is primarily dependent upon the needs of your client, but also the environment that is being tested and the IT assets which reside in them.