A collection of essential tools used in penetration testing, vulnerability assessment, reconnaissance, exploitation, password auditing, and network traffic analysis.
Disclaimer: Use these tools only on systems and networks you own or have explicit permission to test. Unauthorized testing may be illegal and unethical.
Gather information about targets, identify hosts, services, and open ports before performing security assessments.
The most important tool to learn first. Scans for open ports, running services, service versions, and operating system information.
Common Uses:
- Port scanning
- Service enumeration
- OS detection
- Network discovery
Maps devices on a local network using ARP requests.
Common Uses:
- Discover live hosts
- Identify unknown devices
- Internal network reconnaissance
Tools for collecting domain and DNS information.
Whois:
- Domain ownership
- Registration details
- Registrar information
Dig:
- DNS record lookup
- Nameserver discovery
- DNS troubleshooting
An OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) tool that collects publicly available information.
Common Uses:
- Email enumeration
- Subdomain discovery
- Host identification
- Public intelligence gathering
Identify vulnerabilities and security weaknesses in web applications.
The industry-standard web application testing platform.
Features:
- HTTP/HTTPS interception
- Request modification
- Repeater testing
- Automated scanning (Professional Edition)
A fast directory and file enumeration tool.
Common Uses:
- Hidden directory discovery
- File enumeration
- Virtual host discovery
Web server vulnerability and misconfiguration scanner.
Checks For:
- Default files
- Dangerous configurations
- Outdated software
- Common vulnerabilities
Automated SQL injection testing framework.
Features:
- SQL injection detection
- Database enumeration
- Data extraction
- Authentication testing
Simulate attacks and validate vulnerabilities in authorized environments.
One of the most widely used exploitation frameworks.
Capabilities:
- Exploit execution
- Payload generation
- Session management
- Post-exploitation modules
Known as the "Swiss Army Knife" of networking.
Common Uses:
- Port listening
- Network troubleshooting
- Data transfer
- TCP/UDP communication
Offline search utility for public exploits from Exploit-DB.
Benefits:
- Fast exploit lookup
- Local exploit database
- Vulnerability research
Assess password strength and identify weak credentials during authorized security assessments.
Popular password auditing and hash analysis tool.
Features:
- Dictionary attacks
- Rule-based attacks
- Multiple hash format support
High-performance password recovery and auditing tool.
Features:
- GPU acceleration
- Large-scale hash testing
- Extensive hash support
Online authentication testing tool.
Supported Services:
- SSH
- FTP
- HTTP/HTTPS
- RDP
- Many other protocols
Capture and inspect network traffic to understand communication and identify issues.
The world's most widely used packet analyzer.
Capabilities:
- Packet inspection
- Protocol analysis
- Network troubleshooting
- Security investigations
A lightweight command-line packet capture tool.
Benefits:
- Scriptable
- Fast and efficient
- Ideal for servers and remote systems
- Nmap
- Burp Suite
- Wireshark
- Netcat
- Gobuster
- SQLMap
- Metasploit
- Hashcat
- John the Ripper
- theHarvester
- Searchsploit
This repository is intended for educational and authorized security testing purposes only. Users are responsible for complying with all applicable laws, regulations, and organizational policies.