Top 15 Security/Hacking Tools & Utilities

1. Nmap
I think everyone has heard of this one, recently evolved into the 4.x series.
Nmap (“Network Mapper”) is a free open source utility for network exploration or security auditing. It was designed to rapidly scan large networks, although it works fine against single hosts. Nmap uses raw IP packets in novel ways to determine what hosts are available on the network, what services (application name and version) those hosts are offering, what operating systems (and OS versions) they are running, what type of packet filters/firewalls are in use, and dozens of other characteristics. Nmap runs on most types of computers and both console and graphical versions are available. Nmap is free and open source.
Can be used by beginners (-sT) or by pros alike (–packet_trace). A very versatile tool, once you fully understand the results.
Get Nmap Here

2. Nessus Remote Security Scanner
Recently went closed source, but is still essentially free. Works with a client-server framework.
Nessus is the world’s most popular vulnerability scanner used in over 75,000 organizations world-wide. Many of the world’s largest organizations are realizing significant cost savings by using Nessus to audit business-critical enterprise devices and applications.
Get Nessus Here

3. John the Ripper
Yes, JTR 1.7 was recently released!
John the Ripper is a fast password cracker, currently available for many flavors of Unix (11 are officially supported, not counting different architectures), DOS, Win32, BeOS, and OpenVMS. Its primary purpose is to detect weak Unix passwords. Besides several crypt(3) password hash types most commonly found on various Unix flavors, supported out of the box are Kerberos AFS and Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 LM hashes, plus several more with contributed patches.
You can get JTR Here
4. Nikto
Nikto is an Open Source (GPL) web server scanner which performs comprehensive tests against web servers for multiple items, including over 3200 potentially dangerous files/CGIs, versions on over 625 servers, and version specific problems on over 230 servers. Scan items and plugins are frequently updated and can be automatically updated (if desired).
Nikto is a good CGI scanner, there are some other tools that go well with Nikto (focus on http fingerprinting or Google hacking/info gathering etc, another article for just those).
Get Nikto Here
5. SuperScan
Powerful TCP port scanner, pinger, resolver. SuperScan 4 is an update of the highly popular Windows port scanning tool, SuperScan.
If you need an alternative for nmap on Windows with a decent interface, I suggest you check this out, it’s pretty nice.
Get SuperScan Here
6. p0f
P0f v2 is a versatile passive OS fingerprinting tool. P0f can identify the operating system on:
– machines that connect to your box (SYN mode),
– machines you connect to (SYN+ACK mode),
– machine you cannot connect to (RST+ mode),
– machines whose communications you can observe.
Basically it can fingerprint anything, just by listening, it doesn’t make ANY active connections to the target machine.
Get p0f Here
7. Wireshark (Formely Ethereal)
Wireshark is a GTK+-based network protocol analyzer, or sniffer, that lets you capture and interactively browse the contents of network frames. The goal of the project is to create a commercial-quality analyzer for Unix and to give Wireshark features that are missing from closed-source sniffers.
Works great on both Linux and Windows (with a GUI), easy to use and can reconstruct TCP/IP Streams! Will do a tutorial on Wireshark later.
Get Wireshark Here