SecTools.Org: Top 125 Network Security Tools

For more than a decade, the Nmap Project has been cataloguing the network security community's favorite tools. In 2011 this site became much more dynamic, offering ratings, reviews, searching, sorting, and a new tool suggestion form. This site allows open source and commercial tools on any platform, except those tools that we maintain (such as the Nmap Security Scanner, Ncat network connector, and Nping packet manipulator).

We're very impressed by the collective smarts of the security community and we highly recommend reading the whole list and investigating any tools you are unfamiliar with. Click any tool name for more details on that particular application, including the chance to read (and write) reviews. Many site elements are explained by tool tips if you hover your mouse over them. Enjoy!

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← previous page Tools 31–40 of 125 next page →

(5) ★★★★★ Ettercap (#16, 5)

Ettercap is a suite for man in the middle attacks on LAN. It features sniffing of live connections, content filtering on the fly and many other interesting tricks. It supports active and passive dissection of many protocols (even ciphered ones) and includes many feature for network and host analysis. Read 8 reviews.

Latest release: version 0.8.2-Ferri on March 14, 2015 (9 years, 1 month ago).

(6) ★★★★½ inSSIDer (#90, new!)

inSSIDer is a wireless network scanner for Windows, OS X, and Android. It was designed to overcome limitations of NetStumbler, namely not working well on 64-bit Windows and Windows Vista. inSSIDer can find open wireless access points, track signal strength over time, and save logs with GPS records. Read 11 reviews.

Latest release: version 4.1.0 on Jan. 22, 2015 (9 years, 2 months ago).

(9) ★★★★½ Metasploit (#2, 3)

Metasploit took the security world by storm when it was released in 2004. It is an advanced open-source platform for developing, testing, and using exploit code. The extensible model through which payloads, encoders, no-op generators, and exploits can be integrated has made it possible to use the Metasploit Framework as an outlet for cutting-edge exploitation research. It ships with hundreds of exploits, as you can see in their list of modules. This makes writing your own exploits easier, and it certainly beats scouring the darkest corners of the Internet for illicit shellcode of dubious quality. One free extra is Metasploitable, an intentionally insecure Linux virtual machine you can use for testing Metasploit and other exploitation tools without hitting live servers.

Metasploit was completely free, but the project was acquired by Rapid7 in 2009 and it soon sprouted commercial variants. The Framework itself is still free and open source, but they now also offer a free-but-limited Community edition, a more advanced Express edition ($5,000 per year per user), and a full-featured Pro edition. Other paid exploitation tools to consider are Core Impact (more expensive) and Canvas (less).

The Metasploit Framework now includes an official Java-based GUI and also Raphael Mudge's excellent Armitage. The Community, Express, and Pro editions have web-based GUIs. Read 15 reviews.

Latest release: version 4.11 on Dec. 18, 2014 (9 years, 4 months ago).

(6) ★★★★★ Nagios (#69, 2)

Nagios is a system and network monitoring application. It watches hosts and services that you specify, alerting you when things go bad and when they get better. Some of its many features include monitoring of network services (SMTP, POP3, HTTP, NNTP, ICMP, etc.), monitoring of host resources (processor load, disk usage, etc.), and contact notifications when service or host problems occur and get resolved (via email, pager, or user-defined method). Read 8 reviews.

Latest release: version 4.0.8 on Aug. 12, 2014 (9 years, 8 months ago).

(2) ★★★★½ TrueCrypt (#31, 66)

The authors of TrueCrypt abandoned the project in May 2014. While many still use the software, there are several forks and alternatives that are striving to take its lofty place.
TrueCrypt is an excellent open source disk encryption system for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. Users can encrypt entire filesystems, which are then on-the-fly encrypted/decrypted as needed without user intervention beyond initially entering their passphrase. A clever hidden volume feature allows you to hide a second layer of particularly sensitive content with plausible deniability about whether it even exists. Then if you are forced to give up your passphrase, you give them the first-level secret. That only allows them access to the innocuous material you have there, without proving that a second level key even exists. Read 5 reviews.

Latest release: version 7.2 on May 28, 2014 (9 years, 10 months ago).

(1) ★★★★★ BeEF (#77, new!)

BeEF is a browser exploitation framework. This tool will demonstrate the collecting of zombie browsers and browser vulnerabilities in real-time. It provides a command and control interface which facilitates the targeting of individual or groups of zombie browsers. It is designed to make the creation of new exploit modules easy. Read 4 reviews.

Latest release: version 0.4.5.0 on April 25, 2014 (9 years, 12 months ago).

(6) ★★★½ Cain and Abel (#6, 3)

UNIX users often smugly assert that the best free security tools support their platform first, and Windows ports are often an afterthought. They are usually right, but Cain & Abel is a glaring exception. This Windows-only password recovery tool handles an enormous variety of tasks. It can recover passwords by sniffing the network, cracking encrypted passwords using dictionary, brute-force and cryptanalysis attacks, recording VoIP conversations, decoding scrambled passwords, revealing password boxes, uncovering cached passwords and analyzing routing protocols. It is also well documented. Read 17 reviews.

Latest release: version 4.9.56 on April 7, 2014 (10 years ago).

(1) ★★★★ Sguil (#86, 1)

Sguil (pronounced sgweel) is built by network security analysts for network security analysts. Sguil's main component is an intuitive GUI that provides access to realtime events, session data, and raw packet captures. Sguil facilitates the practice of Network Security Monitoring and event driven analysis. Read 1 review.

Latest release: version 0.9.0 on March 28, 2014 (10 years ago).

(3) ★★★ MBSA (#46, 54)

Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) is an easy-to-use tool designed for the IT professional that helps small and medium-sized businesses determine their security state in accordance with Microsoft security recommendations and offers specific remediation guidance. Built on the Windows Update Agent and Microsoft Update infrastructure, MBSA ensures consistency with other Microsoft management products including Microsoft Update (MU), Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), Systems Management Server (SMS) and Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM). Apparently MBSA on average scans over 3 million computers each week. Read 3 reviews.

Latest release: version 2.3 on Nov. 12, 2013 (10 years, 5 months ago).

(2) ★★★ OllyDbg (#44, 49)

OllyDbg is a 32-bit assembler level analyzing debugger for Microsoft Windows. Emphasis on binary code analysis makes it particularly useful in cases where source is unavailable. OllyDbg features an intuitive user interface, advanced code analysis capable of recognizing procedures, loops, API calls, switches, tables, constants and strings, an ability to attach to a running program, and good multi-thread support. OllyDbg is free to download and use but no source code is provided. Read 2 reviews.

Latest release: version 2.01 on Sept. 27, 2013 (10 years, 6 months ago).

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