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Top Computer Security/ Hacking tools
Take a look at the assorted list of security tools you might like to see. A blackhat and whitehat both use them to fingerprint, and intrude the remote machines. This is also a good pointer to the people who come and say “I am a n00b , tell me where to start”. The motive here is not to promote intrusion, but to share the tools of the trade so that tactics and modus-operandi might be known to much more people.
Anyone who’s related to security field, is usually advised by the experience holders to master the toolkit listed below
1. Nmap - One of the best fingerprinting tools around.
Everyone has heard of this one, recently evolved into the 4.x series after Google Summer of Code.Nmap’s core was essencially written by Gordon Lyon, popularly known as Fyodor. Lot of Nmap development goes on during Google Summer of Code.Nmap (”Network Mapper”) is a free open source utility for network exploration or security auditing. It was designed to rapidly scan large networks, although it works fine against single hosts.
Nmap uses raw IP packets in novel ways to determine what hosts are available on the network, what services (application name and version) those hosts are offering, what operating systems (and OS versions) they are running, what type of packet filters/firewalls are in use, and dozens of other characteristics. Nmap runs on most types of computers and both console and graphical versions are available. Nmap is free and open source.
Can be used by beginners (-sT) or by pros alike (–packet_trace).
Nmap Site Here
2. WireShark -Powerful Network Sniffing tool
Wireshark , previously called Ethereal is a one of the greatest open source network protocol analyzer for Unix and Windows. If you’ve read the WiFi Sniffing Post on Grey Hat India, then you might know what a person can do with this. It lets you to examine data from a live network or from a capture file on disk. You can interactively browse the capture data, delving down into just the level of packet detail you need.
One word of caution is that Ethereal has suffered from dozens of remotely exploitable security holes, so stay up-to-date and be wary of running it on untrusted or hostile networks (such as security conferences).
Wireshark Site Here
3. Snort- Lightweight network intrusion detection and prevention system excels at traffic analysis and packet logging on IP networks
Snort detects thousands of worms, vulnerability exploit attempts, port scans, and other suspicious behavior. Snort uses a flexible rule-based language to describe traffic that it should collect or pass, and a modular detection engine. Also check out the free Basic Analysis and Security Engine (BASE), a web interface for analyzing Snort alerts.
Open source Snort works fine for many individuals, small businesses, and departments. Parent company SourceFire offers a complimentary product line with more enterprise-level features and real-time rule updates. They offer a free (with registration) 5-day-delayed rules feed, and you can also find many great free rules at Bleeding Edge Snort.
Snort Site Here
4. Ping/telnet/dig/traceroute/whois/netstat
While there are many whiz-bang high-tech tools out there to assist in security auditing, don’t forget about the basics! Everyone should be very familiar with these tools as they come with most operating systems (except that Windows omits whois and uses the name tracert). They can be very handy in a pinch, although for more advanced usage you may be better off with Hping and Netcat.
5. OpenSSH / PuTTY / SSH : A secure way to access remote computers
SSH (Secure Shell) is the now ubiquitous program for logging into or executing commands on a remote machine. SSH is also used to transfer data from Windows machine to the iPhone .
SSH provides secure encrypted communications between two untrusted hosts over an insecure network, replacing the hideously insecure telnet/rlogin/rsh alternatives. Most UNIX users run the open source OpenSSH server and client. I myself love the free PuTTY client, which is also available for many mobile devices. Other Windows users prefer the nice terminal-based port of OpenSSH that comes with Cygwin. Dozens of other free and proprietary clients exist.
You can explore them here or here
6. Sysinternals : An extensive collection of powerful windows utilities
Sysinternals provides many small windows utilities that are quite useful for low-level windows hacking. Some are free of cost and/or include source code, while others are proprietary. Survey respondents were most enamored with:
- ProcessExplorer for keeping an eye on the files and directories open by any process (like LSoF on UNIX). Using this tool you might get internet access for free in many cybercafes in India, that run cafe client tools to control logins. I’ll post one of the experiences I had recently soon
- PsTools for managing (executing, suspending, killing, detailing) local and remote processes.
- Autoruns for discovering what executables are set to run during system boot up or login.
- RootkitRevealer for detecting registry and file system API discrepancies that may indicate the presence of a user-mode or kernel-mode rootkit.
