Every industry, including ethical hacking, has been influenced by automation. It has changed with the introduction of numerous technologies in the ethical hacking business. Ethical hacking tools aid in information collection, the creation of backdoors and payloads, the cracking of passwords, and a variety of other operations. In this article, we'll go through the top six ethical hacking tools through 2022:

 

  • Acunetix
  • Nmap
  • Metasploit
  • Wireshark
  • Nikto
  • John the Ripper

Acunetix

Acunetix is a tool for automated web application security testing as well as ethical hacking. It is used to audit your online applications for vulnerabilities such as SQL Injection, cross-site scripting, and other exploitable flaws. Acunetix analyses any website or online application that is accessible via a web browser and employs the HTTP/HTTPS protocol in general.

Acunetix provides a powerful and distinct solution for analyzing off-the-shelf and custom web applications, including those that use JavaScript, AJAX, and Web 2.0 web apps. Acunetix has a sophisticated crawler that can locate practically any file. This is significant because what is not detected cannot be checked.

 

Nmap

Nmap, which stands for Network Mapper, is a reconnaissance tool that ethical hackers use to acquire information about a target system. This information is critical in determining the next steps in the assault on the target system. Nmap is a cross-platform application that runs on Mac, Linux, and Windows. Because of its ease of use and extensive searching and scanning capabilities, it has achieved enormous appeal in the hacking community.

 Using Nmap you can:

  • Device security should be checked.
  • Find open ports on remote hosts.
  • Enumeration and mapping of networks
  • Discover weaknesses in any network.
  • Launch a large number of DNS queries against domains and subdomains.

Metasploit

Metasploit is a Ruby-based open-source pen-testing framework. It serves as a public resource for investigating security flaws and writing programs. This enables a network administrator to breach his own network in order to detect security threats and document which vulnerabilities must be fixed first. It is also one of the few ethical hacking tools that novice hackers utilize to hone their skills. It also enables you to imitate websites for phishing and other forms of social engineering. The framework contains a collection of security technologies that can be used to:

Avoid detection systems.

Scan for security vulnerabilities.

Carry out remote attacks

List all networks and hosts.

Supported platforms include:

  • Mac OS X
  • Linux
  • Windows.

Wireshark

Wireshark is a free open-source network traffic analyzer that may be used in real-time. Wireshark is well-known for its ability to discover security issues in any network, as well as its efficacy in fixing ordinary networking issues, thanks to its sniffing technique. You may intercept and read findings in the human-readable format while sniffing the network, making it easier to spot potential problems (such as low latency), threats, and vulnerabilities.

Main features:

  • The analysis is saved for offline inspection.
  • Powerful GUI for packet browsing
  • Comprehensive VoIP analysis
  • Gzip file inspection and decompression
  • Other capture file formats supported include Sniffer Pro, Tcpdump, Microsoft network monitor, Cisco Secure IDS IP log, and others.
  • Results can be exported to XML, PostScript, CSV, or plain text.

Wireshark is available on all major operating systems and supports up to 2000 distinct network protocols.

  • Linux
  • Windows
  • Mac OS X

Nikto

Another popular option is Nikto, which is included in the Kali Linux distribution. Other popular Linux distributions, such as Fedora, already have Nikto in their software repositories. This security tool is used to scan web servers and run various tests on the chosen remote host. Its sleek and straightforward command line interface makes it extremely simple to conduct vulnerability testing on your target.

Nikto’s main features include:

  • Any operating system's default installation files are detected.
  • Identifies out-of-date software applications
  • Metasploit Framework Integration
  • Test for cross-site scripting vulnerabilities.
  • Carry out dictionary-based brute force assaults
  • Results are exported as plain text, CSV, or HTML files.

One of the most well-known password crackers of all time is John the Ripper. It's also one of the greatest security tools for testing passwords to fortify your operating system or remotely auditing one. This password cracker can recognise the type of encryption used in practically any password and adjust its password test algorithm accordingly, making it one of the most sophisticated password cracking tools ever created.

This ethical hacking tool use brute force technologies to crack passwords and algorithms like:

  • DES, MD5, Blowfish
  • Kerberos AFS
  • Hash LM (Lan Manager), the system used in Windows NT / 2000 / XP / 2003
  • MD4, LDAP, MySQL (using third-party modules)

JTR is also open source, multi-platform, and completely compatible with Mac, Linux, Windows, and Android.

Kismet

Kismet is a well-known ethical hacking tool. For 802.11 wireless LANs, it functions as a network detector, packet sniffer, and intrusion detection system. Kismet can sniff 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11n communication on any wireless adapter that supports raw monitoring mode. The application is compatible with Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Mac OS X. The client is also compatible with Microsoft Windows.