The best Hacking tools of 2016 for hackers and pentesters

Here are the top hacking tools for 2016 used by hackers and pentesters worldwide:

Nmap :

Nmap is an abbreviation of ‘Network Mapper’, which is a very well known free open source hackers tool. Nmap is used for network discovery and security auditing.

Literally thousands of system admins all around the world will use nmap for network inventory, check for open ports, manage service upgrade schedules, and monitor host or service uptime. Nmap, as a tool uses raw IP packets in creative ways to determine what hosts are available on the network, what services (application name and version) those hosts are providing information about, what operating systems (fingerprinting) and what type and version of packet filters/ firewalls are being used by the target. There are dozens of benefits of using nmap, one of which is that fact that the admin user is able to determine whether the network (and associated nodes) need patching.

Acutenix Web Vulnerability Scanner :

Find out if your website is secure before hackers download sensitive data, commit a crime by using your website as a launch pad, and endanger your business. Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner (WVS) crawls your website, automatically analyzes your web applications and finds perilous SQL injection, Cross-Site scripting and other vulnerabilities that expose your online business. Concise reports identify where web applications need to be fixed, thus enabling you to protect your business from impending hacker attacks!

The fine folks at Acunetix have published a 100% FREE video course so you can learn how to use this awesome Web Vulnerability Scanner effectively! Here’s a link for more information and to register.

Metasploit :

The Metasploit Project is a hugely popular pentesting or hacking framework. If you are new to Metasploit think of it as a ‘collection of hacking tools’ that can be used to execute various tasks. Widely used by cybersecurity professionals and ethical hackers this is a tool that you have to learn. Metasploit is essentially a computer security project (framework) that provides the user with vital information regarding known security vulnerabilities and helps to formulate penetration testing and IDS testing plans, strategies and methodologies for exploitation.

OWASP Zed Attack Proxy Project :

The Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP) is now one of the most popular OWASP projects. The fact that you’ve reached this page means that you are likely already a relatively seasoned cybersecurity professional so it’s highly likely that you are very familiar with OWASP, not least the OWASP Top Ten Threats listing which is considered as being the ‘guide-book’ of web application security. This hacking and pentesting tool is a very efficient as well as being an ‘easy to use’ program that finds vulnerabilities in web applications. ZAP is a popular tool because it does have a lot of support and the OWASP community is really an excellent resource for those that work within Cyber Security. ZAP provides automated scanners as well as various tools that allow you the cyber pro to discover security vulnerabilities manually.

Wireshark :

Wireshark is an network analyser which allows the tester to capture packets travelling through the network, and to inspect them.

The test computer should be connected at appropriate testing points. Some of my recommendations are:
1. On various points of a DMZ.
2. On a port of a switch.
3. Between router and firewall.(If their is a separate hardware for each) .
Wireshark is possibly the second best known ‘Hackers Tool’ out there. Wireshark has been around for a long time now and it is used by thousands of security professionals to troubleshoot and analyse networks for problems and intrusions. Originally named Ethereal this tool, or rather, ‘platform’ is a highly effective (and free!) open-source packet analyzer. Worth noting that Wireshark is cross-platform, using the GTK+ widget toolkit in current releases, and Qt in the development version.

Burp Suite :

Burp Suite is a network vulnerability scanner basically with some enhanced features. Two commonly used applications used within this tool include the ‘Burp Suite Spider’ which can enumerate and map out the various pages and parameters of a web site by examining cookies and initiates connections with these web applications, and the ‘Intruder’ which performs automated attacks on web applications.

This is a ‘must-learn’ tool if you work within cyber-security and are tasked with penetrating applications used within an organization.

THC Hydra :

Although often considered as yet another password cracker, THC Hydra is hugely popular password cracker and has a very active and experienced development team. Essentially THC Hydra is a fast and stable Network Login Hacking Tool that will use dictionary or brute-force attacks to try various password and login combinations against an log in page.

Hydra supports various network protocols including, but not limited to AFP, Cisco AAA, Cisco auth, Cisco enable, CVS, Firebird, FTP, HTTP-FORM-GET, HTTP-FORM-POST, HTTP-GET, HTTP-HEAD, HTTP-PROXY, HTTPS-FORM-GET, HTTPS-FORM-POST, HTTPS-GET, HTTPS-HEAD, HTTP-Proxy, ICQ, IMAP, IRC, LDAP, MS-SQL, MYSQL, NCP, NNTP, Oracle Listener, Oracle SID, Oracle, PC-Anywhere, PCNFS, POP3, POSTGRES, RDP, and Rexec.

Aircrack-ng :

The Aircrack suite of Wifi (Wireless) hacking tools are legendary because they are very effectively when used in the right hands. For those new to this wireless-specific hacking program, Aircrack-ng is an 802.11 WEP and WPA-PSK keys cracking hacking tool that can recover keys when sufficient data packets have been captured (in monitor mode).

For those tasked with penetrating and auditing wireless networks Aircrack-ng will become your best friend. It’s useful to know that Aircrack-ng implements standard FMS attacks along with some optimizations like KoreK attacks, as well as the PTW attacks to make their attacks more potent. If you are a mediocre hacker then you will be able to crack WEP in a few minutes and you ought to be pretty proficient at being able to crack WPA/ WPA2.

John The Ripper :

John the Ripper wins the award for having the coolest name. John the Ripper, mostly just referred to as simply, ‘John’ is a popular password cracking pentesting tool that is most commonly used to perform dictionary attacks. John the Ripper takes text string samples (from a text file, referred to as a ‘wordlist’, containing popular and complex words found in a dictionary or real passwords cracked before), encrypting it in the same way as the password being cracked (including both the encryption algorithm and key), and comparing the output to the encrypted string. This tool can also be used to perform a variety of alterations to dictionary attacks.

This was all about the trending tools for hackers in 2016. Must tell us if there is a name which is missing here but is worth including.