Top 10 Most Popular Ethical Hacking Tools (2023 Rankings)

Best Open Source Online Ethical Hacking Tools Used by Hackers:

If hacking is performed to identify potential threats to a computer or network, then there will be ethical hacking.

Ethical hacking is also called penetration testing, intrusion testing, and red teaming.

Hacking is the process of gaining access to a computer system with the intention of fraud, data stealing, and privacy invasion, etc., by identifying its weaknesses.

Ethical Hackers:

A person who performs the hacking activities is called a hacker.

There are six types of hackers:

• The Ethical Hacker (White Hat)
• Cracker
• Grey hat
• Script kiddies
• Hacktivist
• Phreaker

A security professional who uses his/her hacking skills for defensive purposes is called an ethical hacker. To strengthen security, ethical hackers use their skills to find vulnerabilities, document them, and suggest ways to rectify them.

Companies that provide online services or those which are connected to the internet, must perform penetration testing by ethical hackers. Penetration testing is another name for ethical hacking. It can be performed manually or through an automation tool.

Ethical hackers work as information security experts. They try to break the security of a computer system, network, or application. They identify the weak points and based on that, they give advice or suggestions to strengthen the security.

Programming languages that are used for hacking include PHP, SQL, Python, Ruby, Bash, Perl, C, C++, Java, VBScript, Visual Basic, C Sharp, JavaScript, and HTML.

Few Hacking Certifications include:

Our TOP Recommendations:

AcunetixInvicti (formerly Netsparker)

• HTML5 Support
• Application Vulnerability Scanning
• Threat Detection• False-Positive Detection
• Patch Management
• IAST+DAST

Price: Quote-based
Trial version: Free DemoPrice: Quote-based
Trial version: Free Demo

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Given below is a list of the most popular Hacking Software that is available in the market.

Tool NamePlatform Best For Type Price

Acunetix

Windows, Mac, RedHat 8, etc. & Web-based. End-to-end web security scanning.Web Application Security Scanner.Get a quote.

Invicti (formerly Netsparker)

Windows & Web-basedAccurate and automated application security testing. Web Application Security for Enterprise.Get a quote

Intruder

Cloud-basedFinding & fixing vulnerabilities in your infrastructure.Computer & Network security.Free monthly trial available.
Pricing starts from $38/month.

Nmap

Mac OS, Linux, OpenBSD, Solaris, WindowsScanning network.Computer security & Network management. Free

Metasploit

Mac OS, Linux, WindowsBuilding anti-forensic and evasion tools. Security Metasploit Framework: Free.
Metasploit Pro: Contact them.

Aircrack-Ng

Cross-platformSupports any wireless network interface controller. Packet sniffer & injector. Free

Wireshark

Linux, Windows, Mac OS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSDAnalyzing data packets. Packet analyzer Free

Let’s Explore!!

Acunetix is a fully automated ethical hacking tool that detects and reports on over 4500 web application vulnerabilities including all variants of SQL Injection and XSS.

The Acunetix crawler fully supports HTML5 and JavaScript and Single-page applications, allowing auditing of complex, authenticated applications.

It bakes advanced Vulnerability Management features right into its core, prioritizing risks based on data through a single, consolidated view, and integrating the scanner’s results into other tools and platforms.

Invicti (formerly Netsparker) is a dead accurate ethical hacking tool, that mimics a hacker’s moves to identify vulnerabilities such as SQL Injection and Cross-site Scripting in web applications and web APIs.

Invicti uniquely verifies the identified vulnerabilities proving they are real and not false positives, so you do not need to waste hours manually verifying the identified vulnerabilities once a scan is finished. It is available as Windows software and an online service.

Intruder is a fully automated scanner that finds cybersecurity weaknesses in your digital estate, and explains the risks & helps with their remediation. It’s a perfect addition to your arsenal of ethical hacking tools.

With over 9,000 security checks available, Intruder makes enterprise-grade vulnerability scanning accessible to companies of all sizes. Its security checks include identifying misconfigurations, missing patches, and common web application issues such as SQL injection & cross-site scripting.

Built by experienced security professionals, Intruder takes care of much of the hassle of vulnerability management, so you can focus on what truly matters. It saves you time by prioritizing results based on their context as well as proactively scanning your systems for the latest vulnerabilities, so you don’t need to stress about it.

Intruder also integrates with major cloud providers as well as Slack & Jira.

#4) Nmap

Price: Free

Nmap is a security scanner, port scanner, as well as a network exploration tool. It is open-source software and is available for free.

It supports cross-platform. It can be used for network inventory, managing service upgrade schedules, and for monitoring host & service uptime. It can work for a single host as well as large networks. It provides binary packages for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X.

Features:

Nmap suite has:

• Data transfer, redirection, and debugging tool (Ncat),
• Scan results comparing utility(Ndiff),
• Packet generation and response analysis tool (Nping),
• GUI and Results viewer (Nping)

Using raw IP packets, it can determine:

• Available hosts on the network.
• Their services offered by these available hosts.
• Their OS.
• Packet filters they are using.
• And many other characteristics.

Best For scanning networks. It is easy to use and fast as well.

Website: Nmap

#5) Metasploit

Price: Metasploit Framework is an open-source tool and it can be downloaded for free. Metasploit Pro is a commercial product. The free trial is available for 14 days. Contact the company to learn more about its pricing details.

It is the software for penetration testing. Using the Metasploit Framework, you can develop and execute exploit code against a remote machine. It supports cross-platform.

Features:

• It is useful for knowing about security vulnerabilities.
• Helps in penetration testing.
• Helps in IDS signature development.
• You can create security testing tools.

Best For Building anti-forensic and evasion tools.

Website: Metasploit

#6) Aircrack-Ng

Price: Free

Aircrack-ng provides different tools for evaluating Wi-Fi network security.

All are command-line tools. For Wi-Fi security, it focuses on monitoring, attacking, testing, and cracking. It supports Linux, Windows, OS X, Free BSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, and eComStation 2.

Features:

• Aircrack-ng can focus on Replay attacks, de-authentication, fake access points, and others.
• It supports exporting data to text files.
• It can check Wi-Fi cards and driver capabilities.
• It can crack WEP keys and for that, it makes use of FMS attacks, PTW attacks, and dictionary attacks.
• It can crack WPA2-PSK and for that, it makes use of dictionary attacks.

Best For Supporting any wireless network interface controller.

Website: Aircrack-Ng

#7) Wireshark

Price: Free

Wireshark is a packet analyzer and can perform deep inspections of many protocols.

It supports cross-platform. It allows you to export the output to different file formats like XML, PostScript, CSV, and Plaintext. It provides the facility to apply coloring rules to packet lists so that analysis will be easier and quicker. The above image will show the capturing of packets.

Features:

• It can decompress the gzip files on the fly.
• It can decrypt many protocols like IPsec, ISAKMP, SSL/TLS, etc.
• It can perform live capture and offline analysis.
• It allows you to browse the captured network data using GUI or TTY-mode TShark utility.

Best For Analyzing data packets.

Website: Wireshark

#8) OpenVAS

Open Vulnerability Assessment Scanner is a fully-featured tool that can perform unauthenticated & authenticated testing and performance tuning for large-scale scans.

It contains the capabilities of various high-level & low-level internet & industrial protocols and a powerful internal programming language. Based on a long history and daily updates, the scanner gets the tests to detect vulnerabilities.

Website: OpenVAS

#9) SQLMap

SQLMap is a tool for automating the process of detecting & exploiting SQL injection flaws and taking charge of database servers.

It is an open-source tool and has a powerful detection engine. It completely supports MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, and many more. It fully supports six SQL injection techniques, Boolean-based blind, time-based blind, error-based, UNION query-based, stacked queries, and out-of-band.

SQLMap supports executing arbitrary commands & retrieving their standard output, downloading & uploading any file, searching for specific database names, etc. It will let you connect directly to the database.

Website: SQLMap

#10) NetStumbler

NetStumbler is a wireless networking tool. It supports Windows OS. It makes use of 802.11b, 802.11a, and 802.11g WLAN for the detection of wireless LANs. It also has a trimmed-down version called MiniStumbler that is for handheld Windows CE OS. It provides integrated support for a GPS unit.

NetStumbler can be used to verify network configurations, find locations with poor coverage in a WLAN, detect causes of wireless interference, detect unauthorized access points, etc.

Website: NetStumbler

#11) Ettercap

Price: Free.

Ettercap supports cross-platform. Using Ettercap’s API, you can create custom plugins. Even with a proxy connection, it can do sniffing of HTTP SSL secured data.

Features:

• Sniffing of live connections.
• Content filtering.
• Active and passive dissection of many protocols.
• Network and host analysis.

Best For Creating custom plugins.

Website: Ettercap

#12) Maltego

Price: The Community version, Maltego CE is available for free. The price for Maltego Classic is $999. The price for Maltego XL is $1999. These two products are for the desktop. The price for the server products like CTAS, ITDS, and Comms starts at $40000, which includes training as well.

Maltego is a tool for link analysis and data mining. It supports Windows, Linux, and Mac OS.

For the discovery of data from open sources and visualizing the information in graphical format, it provides the library of transforms. It performs real-time data mining and information gathering.

Features:

• Represents data on node-based graph patterns.
• Maltego XL can work with large graphs.
• It will provide you with a graphical picture, thereby telling you about the weak points and abnormalities of the network.

Best For working with very large graphs.

Website: Maltego

Further Reading => Explore the Best Laptops for Hacking

#13) Nikto

Price: Free

Nikto is an open-source tool for scanning the web server.

It scans the web server for dangerous files, outdated versions, and particular version-related problems. It saves the report in a text file, XML, HTML, NBE, and CSV file formats. Nikto can be used on the system which supports basic Perl installation. It can be used on Windows, Mac, Linux, and UNIX systems.

Features:

• It can check web servers for over 6700 potentially dangerous files.
• It has full HTTP proxy support.
• Using headers, favicons, and files, it can identify the installed software.
• It can scan the server for outdated server components.

Best For – as a Penetration Testing tool.

Website: Nikto

#14) Burp Suite

Price: There are three pricing plans. Community edition can be downloaded for free. Pricing for the Enterprise edition starts at $3999 per year. The price of the Professional edition starts at $399 per user per year.

Burp Suite has a web vulnerability scanner and has advanced and essential manual tools.

It provides many features for web application security. It has three editions: community, enterprise, and professional. With community editions, it provides essential manual tools. With paid versions, it provides more features like web vulnerabilities scanners.

Features:

• It allows you to schedule and repeat the scan.
• It scans for 100 generic vulnerabilities.
• It uses out-of-band techniques (OAST).
• It provides a detailed customs advisory for the reported vulnerabilities.
• It provides CI Integration.

Best For Security testing.

Website: Burp Suite

#15) John The Ripper

Price: Free

John the Ripper is a tool for password cracking. It can be used on Windows, DOS, and Open VMS. It is an open-source tool. It is created for detecting weak UNIX passwords.

Features:

• John the Ripper can be used to test various encrypted passwords.
• It performs dictionary attacks.
• It provides various password crackers in one package.
• It provides a customizable cracker.

Best For: It is fast in password cracking.

Website: John the Ripper

#16) Angry IP Scanner

Price: Free

Angry IP Scanner is a tool for scanning IP addresses and ports. It can scan it on both your local network and Internet. It supports Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems.

Features:

• It can export the results in many formats.
• It is a command-line interface tool.
• It is extensible with many data fetchers.

Website: Angry IP Scanner

Conclusion

As explained here, Nmap is used for computer security and network management. It is good for scanning the network. Metasploit is also for security and is good for building anti-forensic and evasion tools.

Aircrack-Ng is a free packet sniffer & injector and supports cross-platform. Wireshark is a packet analyzer and is good at analyzing data packets. As per the reviews available online, people recommend using Nmap instead of Angry IP scanner as Angry IP Scanner comes with unwanted applications.

John the Ripper is fast in password cracking. Nikto is a good open-source tool for penetration testing. Maltego presents the data in a graphical form and will give you information about weak points and abnormalities.

Suggested Read =>> Best Ethical Hacking Courses

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This was all about ethical hacking and the top ethical hacking tools. Hope you find this article useful!!