Cybercrime poses a serious threat in our IT industry and many tactics are used to combat it. White hackers use various tools to scan networks and identify potential vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit. Today we will be looking at some of the best penetration test Kali Linux tools for ethical hackers and penetration testers. Before we get into the list let’s review a few key terms.
What is Penetration Testing?
Penetration testing, also known as pen testing or security pen testing, or security testing, is ethical, or white hat, hacking. Pen testing penetrates an organization’s cyber defenses to check for exploitable flaws in networks, user security, and web applications.
Pen testers launch mock cyberattacks on targeted networks to evaluate the effectiveness of a computer system. These ethical hackers also look for ways to bypass the computer system’s defenses and gain access.
These attacks are used to help organizations identify weak points in their network infrastructure and guide security efforts.
What is Kali Linux?
Kali Linux is an open-source distribution designed for cybersecurity professionals and ethical hackers as well as penetration testers. It is Debian-derived and focuses on 600 tools for security auditing and penetration testing. Kali Linux was actively developed by Offensive Security and is a popular security distribution used by Infosec companies and ethical hackers.
Kali Linux is intended for professionals and web admins who know how to use Kali Linux. It was not meant to be used for general usage.
Kali Linux comes pre-installed with many security-hacker apps. These include forensic tools, hacking tools, information gathering tools, password cracking, and reverse engineering. Web applications can also be used for stress testing, sniffing and/or spoofing, vulnerability analysis, and more. You can even add tools.
There are hundreds of tools available. We’ve compiled this list of the best Kali Linux tools we recommend for this year. You don’t need to spend hours looking through all the available tools to find the best Kali Linux ones. We have done all the hard work for you. You’re welcome!
Also read: Top 10 Linux Distros for 2022
Top 8 Kali Linux Tools
These are the top eight penetration tools that will get you through 2023. They cover a wide range of attacks and techniques.
1. Fluxion
Wi-Fi is becoming more popular every year which makes it an attractive target of opportunity for hackers. Pen testers need to be able to check Wi-Fi networks for security breaches.
Fluxion allows you to scan wireless networks and is a Wi-Fi analyzer that specializes in MITM WPA attacks. Fluxion is used by pen testers to find security holes in personal and corporate networks. Fluxion is not like other Wi-Fi cracking tools. It does not launch lengthy brute force cracking attempts.
Fluxion instead creates an MDK3 process that forces all users to deauthenticate or loses authentication. After this has been completed, Fluxion creates an MDK3 process that forces all users on the targeted network to lose authentication or deauthenticate. The user then is prompted to connect with a fake access point and is required to enter the Wi-Fi password. To gain access, the program will report the password to the pen tester.
2. John the Ripper
John the Gipper earns points for creative names. This hacker’s resource is a multiplatform cryptography test tool that can be used on Linux, Windows, and macOS. This tool allows system administrators and security penetration testers to test any system password’s strength by using brute force attacks. John the Ripper is also useful for testing encryptions such as DES, SHA-1 and many others.
It is dependent on the algorithms detected to determine if it can change password decryption methods. John the Ripper is free software, distributed under the GPL License. It’s ideal for anyone looking to test the security of their passwords.
John the Ripper has many advantages:
- Brute force testing, dictionary attacks
- Compatibility with all operating systems and CPU architectures
- Crons allow you to run automatically
- Allowing Pause and Resume options to any scan
- It allows hackers to define custom letters and build dictionary attack lists.
- It allows for brute force customization rules
3. Lynis
Lynis may be the best tool for cybersecurity compliance. Lynis is also a powerful platform for penetration testing and vulnerability scanning due to its many capabilities.
The main features of this Kali Linux tool are:
- Open source, free, and without commercial support.
- Easy installation via the GitHub repository
- It can be used on multiple platforms, including BSD, macOS, and Linux.
- It can perform up to 300 security checks on remote hosts.
- Its output report can be shared on-screen. This includes suggestions, warnings, and information about any security issues.
Linis is probably the most comprehensive tool available for cybersecurity compliance. (e.g. PCI, HIPAA, and SOx), system auditing. system hardening. and testing. In addition, thanks to its numerous capabilities, Lynis is also an effective platform for penetration testing and vulnerability scanning.
4. Metasploit Framework
Remote computing is growing thanks to more people working remotely. Metasploit framework or MSF, for short, is a Ruby platform that ethical hackers use to create, test, and execute exploits against the remote host. Metasploit contains a comprehensive collection of security tools for penetration testing. It also includes the powerful terminal-based console msfconsole that allows you to find targets, exploit security flaws and launch scans. You can also collect all data.
MSF is available for Windows and Linux. It’s most likely to be one of the most powerful security auditing Kali Linux tools for cybersecurity professionals.
Metasploit Framework’s features include:
- Network discovery and enumeration
- Remote hosts can be detected and avoided
- Exploiting execution and development
- Remote targets can be scanned
- Collecting valuable data and exploiting vulnerabilities
5. Nikto
Nikto allows ethical hackers and pen testers to conduct a comprehensive web server scan to find security flaws and other issues. This scan detects default file names and collects the results. Insecure file and application patterns, obsolete server software, and misconfigurations of server and software are all possible.
Nikto is written in Perl and complements OpenVAS as well as other vulnerability scanners. It also supports host-based authentication, proxy, SSL encryption, and many other features.
The primary features of Nikto are:
- Multiple ports can be scanned on a server.
- Providing IDS evasion techniques.
- You can output results to TXT, NBE, or CSV.
- Enumeration of usernames for Apache and CGIWrap
- Headers, files, and icons can be used to identify installed software.
- Scanning specific CGI directories
- Using custom configuration files.
6. Nmap
Nmap is the most popular network mapper tool in IT circles. This tool allows you to find active hosts in any network and provides additional information about penetration testing such as open ports.
Nmap’s main features are:
- Host discovery is a method of identifying hosts within a network.
- Port scanning allows you to count open ports on a remote or local host.
- OS detection allows you to gather information about the operating system and hardware of any connected device
- You can detect the version number and name of an app using App Version Detection
- Scriptable interaction extends Nmap’s default capabilities using the Nmap Scripting Engine or NSE
Also read: Top 10 Free and Open-Source SIEM Software
7. Skipfish
Skipfish can be used as a Kali Linux tool similar to WPScan. Skipfish scans multiple web applications instead of focusing only on WordPress. Skipfish is an auditing tool that can be used to crawl web-based data. giving pen testers a quick overview of how secure an app is. Skipfish is an auditing tool that crawls web-based data. It gives pen-testers an easy way to see how secure any app is.
Skipfish uses its recon capabilities to perform recursive crawls and dictionary-based tests on all URLs. This crawl creates a digital map that includes the results of security checks.
Notable features of the Skipfish include:
- Automated learning capabilities
- Different security checks.
- It is easy to use
- Low false positive rate
- High-speed security checks that can process more than 200 requests per second.
8. Social Engineering Toolkit
We have the right tool for you if you’re interested in hacking into social network accounts. The Social Engineering Tools (also known as SET) is an open-source Python-based penetration test framework that allows you to quickly and easily launch social engineering attacks. It is compatible with Linux and Mac OS X.
Kali Linux’s SET tool is essential for hackers and pen testers who are interested in social engineering.
These are some of the attacks that you can launch using the Social Engineering Toolkit.
- Wi-Fi AP-based attacks that redirect or intercept packets of Wi-Fi network users
- Here are SMS and email attacks that attempt to trick and create fake emails to steal social credentials
- Web-based attacks allow hackers to clone web pages to drive real users through DNS spoofing and Phishing attacks
- Payloads (.exe) are created, which creates a malicious file that can compromise the system of anyone who clicks it.
