Updated April 7, 2023
Introduction to Kali Linux tools list
Kali Linux tools list is defined as a list of tools present in Kali Linux distribution, which aids users to perform penetration testing and understand that Kali Linux is the most recommended distribution for ethical hackers around the world. But the utilization of the tool is just not restricted to ethical hacking, but even for a webmaster, many of these tools are equally efficient and worthy. These tools aid users in penetration testing by enabling their task in testing, hacking or anything which is part of digital forensics. No matter who is using the tools or what specifics of utility space of the tools, the list we are going to discuss here caters to the top tools in Kali Linux!
List of Kali Linux tools and explanation of each
In Kali Linux, there are a bunch of tools that we will talk about comes pre-installed. In case you don’t find the tools in the distribution pre-installed, one can easily download the same and install it to easily use it for the utility! We will make sure that the list we mention here takes care of all the penetration testing cycle procedures, i.e. Reconnaissance, scanning, Exploitation, post-exploitation. We will try to focus on some important tools, as talking about all might be an endless discussion due to the vastness of tools present. Without much further ado, let us kickstart the list modelled into sub-groups in accordance with their utilities.
1. Gathering Information
TracerRoute: This is a utility in Kali Linux which enables users in network diagnostic. It shows up the connection route and as well as measures the delays in transit of the packets across an IP network.
- WhatWeb: This utility enables the utility of information gathering and is like a website fingerprint. It is analogous to an interrogation agent who tries to interrogate a website in getting answers to what that website is built of. To help WhatWeb, there are 1800 plugins, each having their own utility.
- Nmap: Another frequently used tool is Nmap that is used for network discovery and auditing of security. Options are present, which notifies of each open port available on the target.
- Dirbuster: As the name signifies, this tool is to bust hidden objects, files or even directories present in a website. A dictionary-based attack is launched with a set of preconfigured lists of words, and the response is analyzed to find the hidden gem!
2. Analysis of Web Application
- SQLiv: This tool is one of the most common ones used for simple and massive vulnerability scanner of SQL injection. This is one of the few ones in the list that doesn’t come pre-installed in Kali Linux distribution but is still the most widely used!
- BurpSuite: This is another addition to the web application analysis, which itself comprises of a collection of tools that are bundled to form a single suite of web application’s security testing starting from the scratch, i.e. analysis of the attack surface.
- OWASP-ZAP: This is a Java based tool for testing the web application’s security which promises an intuitive GUI to perform tasks that include fuzzing, spidering, scripting etc., along with the presence of a number of plugins to ease of the task in hand.
3. Analysis of Vulnerability
- Nikto: One of the common tools used for assessing vulnerability and security threats. This tool has the capability to scan for 6500+ files or programs, which can be potentially dangerous.
4. Password attacks
- Hash-identifier: This tool helps users in the identification of various hashes that are used for the encryption of data and passwords. Along with his tool, another tool named findmyhash is used for cracking the data using online services. Let’s say we receive an encrypted text; it is put through hash-identifier to figure out the hash type attached to it and then later findmyhash cracks the data to its original string.
- Crunch: This tool is like a utility that allows users to create custom wordlists. With a standard character set or with a specified one, all sort of permutation and combination is generated for the utility of password attacks.
- John the Ripper: Another widely used offline password cracking service that combines a lot of password crackers into a single package. It takes care of identifying the hash type, customization cracker and many such more and that too in offline mode!
5. Assessing Database
- SQLMap: This is one of the most widely used tools for database assessment as the process of detection and exploitation of vulnerabilities present in SQL injection, which can lead to taking over of database. For carrying on with this, we might need to find a website that is SQL injection vulnerable, for which another tool discussed above, SQLiv, will come in handy!
6. Wireless attack
- Aircrack-NG suite: As the name suggests that this is a suite, a scanner, WEP and WPA/WPA2-PSK cracker, a packet sniffer and an analysis tool is threaded together to carry out tasks to crack or identify vulnerabilities in any wireless mediums! This tool consists of 16 sub-tools to carry on with the utility.
- Fluxion: This is like the creation of a clone of the target Wi-Fi network. Now when a user connects to the wireless network, an authentication window pops up, and the user enters the password, which is then captured henceforth!
7. Spoofing & Sniffing
- Wireshark: This is another great and widely used network analyzer tool for auditing security. Wireshark performs general packet filtering by using display filters, including the one to grab a captured password.
- BetterCAP: Another great tool for performing man in the middle attacks against a network. This is achieved by manipulation of HTTP, HTTPS, TCP traffic in real-time, credential sniffing and many such more to carry out such attacks!
8. Keeping anonymity
- MacChanger: When one is performing the different tasks mentioned above, we must make sure that our identity is not disclosed, and it will just be foolish if any prevention is overlooked. This tool enables changing of the user’s MAC address so as to keep the identity anonymous!
Conclusion
In this article, we have a flavor of how all the tools present in Kali Linux, along with the flavor of different utilities Kali Linux, presents. Within each of the utilities, we have looked at the most widely used ones, and we encourage readers to try them out and feel the utility LIVE!
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This is a guide to the Kali Linux tools list. Here we discuss how all the tools that are present in Kali Linux, along with the flavor of different utilities Kali Linux presents. You may also have a look at the following articles to learn more –
