7 Best Cyber Security Penetration Testing Tools

With the current proliferation of attacks on computer systems, proactively safeguarding your critical IT infrastructure is key. And, one of the best techniques for companies and individuals to protect themselves is through penetration testing.

Penetration testing (or pen testing) refers to the technique of assessing the security of IT systems with the intention of discovering vulnerabilities—before attackers identify them.

If you want to dive deeper into penetration testing, you can watch professionals at LiveEdu and gain important skills for defending your systems.

Here are 7 of the best penetration testing tools for carrying out pentesting exercises. You can find some of the listed tools here for free, while others will require license payments; but all are suitable for use.

1. Metasploit

Metasploit is a very popular collection of various penetration tools. Cyber security professionals and other IT experts have used it for years to accomplish various objectives, including discovering vulnerabilities, managing security evaluations, and formulating defense methodologies.

You can use the Metasploit tool on servers, online-based applications, networks, and several other places. If a new security vulnerability or exploit is reported, the utility will have it. If you need to evaluate the security of your infrastructure against older vulnerabilities, Metasploit will have you covered.

2. Nmap

Nmap, also known as network mapper, is a free and open source tool for scanning your systems or networks for vulnerabilities. The tool is also helpful in carrying out other activities, including monitoring host or service uptime and performing mapping of network attack surfaces.

Nmap runs on all the major operating systems and is suitable for scanning both large and small networks.

With the utility, you can understand the various characteristics of any target network, including the hosts available on the network, the type of operating system running, and the type of packet filters or firewalls in place.

3. Wireshark

Wireshark is a handy tool that can assist you to see the minutest details of the activities taking place in your network. It is an actual network analyzer, network sniffer, or network protocol analyzer for assessing the vulnerabilities of your network traffic in real time.

This penetration tool is widely used for scrutinizing the details of network trafficat various levels—from the connection-level information to the pieces that constitute a packet of data.

Capturing data packets will allow you to investigate the various characteristics of individual packets, such as where they are coming from, their destination, and protocol used. With the information, you can easily identify security weaknessesin your network.

4. Aircrack-ng

Aircrack-ng is a comprehensive collection of utilities for analyzing the weaknesses in a WiFi network. The tool allows you to monitor the security of your WiFi network by capturing data packets and exporting them to text files for further analysis. You can also verify the performance of WiFi cards through capture and injection.

Importantly, if you want to assess the reliability of your WEP and WPA-PSK keys, you can crack them using this tool.

5. John the Ripper

One of the most prominent cyber security risks is the use of the traditional passwords. Attackers usually compromise users’ passwords and use them to steal important credentials, enter sensitive systems, or cause other forms of damage.

As such, password cracking is one of the critical aspects of penetration testing. One of the best penetration testing tools that is used for this purpose is John the Ripper. It is a simple, free tool that blends different password crackers into a single package, automatically identifies different types of password hashes, and comes with a customizable cracker.

Pen testers usually use the tool to launch attacks with the intention of finding password weaknesses in a system or a database.

6. Nessus

Nessus is a popular paid-for tool for scanning vulnerabilities in a computing system or network. It is amazingly easy to use, offers fast and accurate scanning, and can provide you with a comprehensive outlook of your network’s weaknesses at the click of a button.

This tool scans for loopholes that attackers may exploit to cause damage to your IT infrastructure. Some of the vulnerabilities it identifies include misconfiguration errors, improper passwords, and open ports.

7. Burpsuite

Burp Suite is a widely used utility for checking the security of web-based applications. It consists of various tools which can be used for carrying out different security tests, including mapping the attack surface of the application, analyzing requests and responses occurring between the browser and destination servers, and crawling web-based applications automatically.

Burp Suite has two versions: the free version and the professional version. The free version has the essential manual tools for carrying out scanning activities. You can go for the professional version if you need advanced web penetration testing capabilities.

Conclusion

Have you carried out penetration testing before? Did you use any of the above-listed penetration testing tools?

If you want to improve your penetration testing skills, you can learn from the professionals. Ultimately, you’ll use the various penetration testing tools with ease.

Finding Security Against Invisible Malware

We live in a world of possibilities! The Good, the bad, and the ugly anything can happen.

While innovators at Google are working hard to make it easy and safe for people to move around using driverless cars or self-driving cars, hackers, on the other hand, are already making life difficult for people hacking computer systems and stealing their personal and sensitive data using a similar logic – Fileless malware.

Used synonymously with Non-malware or zero footprint malware, Fileless malware has been in existence for many years now; however, as hackers constantly try to use deceptive methods to infiltrate and attack computer systems and networks, this sophisticated technology is becoming increasingly popular in the recent times.

Unlike a traditional malware attack, which requires a code to be written on the hard disk, Zero footprint malware attack uses no code, but legitimate system assets and trusted processes such as memory, PowerShell, etc., to infect victim’s machine. As these are highly trusted processes, most anti-virus software does not even scan them.  Thus offering, an easy and convenient way for hackers to go un-detected hiding behind the trusted process. Also known as, “Living off the Land,” this malware offers more stealth and effectiveness to an attack, and therefore hackers are increasingly using this method to perform their nefarious activities.

A recent study by Ponemon Institute reveals that in the year 2016, about 9% of attacks used this method, which grew to 29% in 2017, and is expected to increase to 35% in the year 2018 significantly raising the alert levels for both individuals and businesses. As non-file malware offers ten times better success rate, hackers are relying on this method to attack computer networks. 

With these types of security attacks on the rise, individuals and businesses need to educate themselves on the style of attacks, and incident response options available to them.

How does a Fileless malware attack take place?

After clicking on a cleverly disguised spam message, the user is taken to a webpage that downloads flash; flash with many vulnerabilities is the preferred choice of smart hackers to infect systems.  

Hackers then use Flash to access PowerShell and send instructions, operating just from computer’s memory, through the command line to download malicious PowerShell script, which collects sensitive data and sends it back to the attacker.

Symptoms of a File less malware Attack

Without a file installed on the computer, even the traditional security tools may find it difficult to detect the presence of a Non-file malware on your computer. However, some warning signs your computer or network displays when infected with an invisible malware include weird network behaviors, computer attempting to connect to botnet servers, etc.

Safeguards against Zero footprint malware attacks

Prevention is better than cure. Identifying an attack in the early stages may help mitigate the risk, here are some steps that help prevent an attack or reduce the damage in the event of an attack.

• As hackers use existing system resources, to attack your computer, disabling those systems, and process when not in use is an option available to users. Disable PowerShell, Macros, Windows Management Instrumentation, if you are not using them.
• Always keep the software and patches current and up to date.
• Constantly monitor security, network, and activity logs
• Grant privileges and access carefully to credible users
• Monitor system’s behavior patterns regularly.

The Hacker Code of Ethics

Cyber-terrorists were once hackers, and maybe that’s why the media treat them like that. But if they were, why are not they anymore?

Every hacker has a strict code of ethics, where he tries to always differentiate between right and wrong, from the moment that code is ignored and his actions become destructive, that individual can no longer be considered a hacker by the community.

To better understand this code of ethics knows the three pillars in the hacker community: Collaboration, Knowledge, Freedom.

A hacker who stood out and is considered one of the most excellent hackers of the twentieth century, Richard Stallman, his ethics is based on the three pillars, which were also the basis for the creation of the Free Software Foundation, Copyleft, and free software.

When a hacker loses his ethics, we move into a sub-division of this narrow hierarchy. Many are imagining that he will be turning into a Cracker, but it is not so, even within the hacker classification there are two sub-types, while we can call someone hacker he is a white hat, he uses his ethics as a guide. When a hacker loses this ethic he is considered a black hat, in that case, he uses his knowledge and his unique way of thinking without using any code of ethics, performing actions for his benefit, espionage or even fun.

Crackers are people in the hacker community who specialize in code-breaking, those who break password hashes and program protection keys.

In the community, we also have the so-called Social Engineer who uses non-technical means to obtain privileged information. He is usually a master at deceiving and deceiving people.

Scammers: Fraud, which uses some flaws common programs such as IE and a bit of social engineering to send lay users to fake sites with the goal of capturing access passwords etc.

Script Kiddie: This guy has no in-depth knowledge or defined targets. Uses the internet for scripts ready to make their attacks. For kiddies, what matters is the number of sites that invade, not the quality. Thus, they “scratch” thousands of websites every day, changing significant web pages of some small business, sometimes actually accessing essential files.

Defacer: Script Kiddie that only cares about replacing the main page of any website.

Lammer: Script Kiddie with little knowledge, but posing as a “technology guru.” These are up in the IT market.

When it comes to hacker ethics and history, I always get two pictures:

Cathedral Method

• Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie (Unix)
• Donald E. Knuth (TeX, MetaFont)
• Richard Stallman (GNU Project, FSF, GPL license, gcc, emacs, …)

Bazaar Method

• Linus Torvalds, inventor, and first Linux kernel implementer
• Bruce Parens, one of the first coordinators of the Debian project

For all lovers of information security, here is must-read: https://bit.ly/14JwODI

From the year 1980 to the present day, the internet has evolved very, very fast. Today it is possible to have access to quality information quickly. Just a matter of decision, about what you want for your life. I found some great free courses here at Cybrary. This is fantastic!

This article is for beginners and curious. For beginners, I recommend doing some basic courses in the Security area.

Here are some links that came to mind when writing this blog:

• Chaos Computer Club – https://www.ccc.de/en/
• 414s  – http://www.the414s.com/

Security Conferences:

• https://www.defcon.org
• https://www.blackhat.com

Videos:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8NPllzkFhE

Fun:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS-aLOm-6Vc