Kali Linux, a Linux distro that comes with every penetration testing app available, is a powerful tool for even the most novice pentester. Although the 600+ tools you already have seem like everything, there are some tools that are better for certain tasks. Our Linux training course will show you which tools are best for what tasks.
Sometimes a scalpel is more useful than a broadsword. However, sometimes the broadsword is not powerful enough and you will need to use the multi-bladed Sith Army Knife.
Let’s take a look to see which Kali tools are best for certain pentesting tasks. This includes hacking the entire First Order and surgery.
SCARY LEGAL WARNING! As with any pen testing exercise you should never use any tools against systems you don’t own. This is against many unauthorized access laws in the U.S. as well as most other countries. Even harmless port scans can be used against you. Be smart and scan only targets you own or have permission for to scan.
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Start trainingNmap: The Best Kali Tool For Port Scanning
Nmap. Done. Move on.
We’re kidding. Let’s get into everyone’s favorite network mapping program. Nmap is a pentester’s best friend. It is often the first weapon drawn when enumerating target locations. Take a look at the first 60 second of any Ippsec video. Almost every time, he starts with a Nmap scan, then reviews the open ports it finds.
Let’s take a look at the terms and go backwards. Network ports are communication endpoints that connect two hosts, as you learned in Network+ training. Ports will usually be open to connections from clients; clients connect to the port and the two computers exchange data. Ports are numbered from 1-65535 to be precise, but that shouldn’t overwhelm you. There are only a few that will be needed frequently enough to worry about.
An Nmap scan will check for open ports on a system. An application must listen for incoming connections on the port. Your traffic must also be allowed by the firewall to reach that host. Nmap can scan a variety of ports depending on the options you choose when running the scan. It will then search for those that are open. It sends the first part of a TCP 3-way handshake and waits for the response. Is there no response? This port is closed. Move on to the next.
This scans a lot of ports quickly, hundreds per second if there is a good connection to host. However, it can be more beneficial to scan common ports than 65535. Nmap scans only the 1,000 most commonly used TCP ports by default. It then attempts to determine which application is actually running on the port. Sometimes, it can do this very accurately by using a banner grab. For example, a web server might respond to an HTTP request with “Well hello there buddy!” I’m an IIS7.5 server! Do you need some web pages? Okay, it actually will look more like: Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.5.But you get the idea.
Why is this important? A quick Google search will reveal that IIS is the built in Windows Server web server and that IIS7.5 is the web server that comes with Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2, so you can assume that your host is either one of these. You can do an OS enumeration of the target with a simple port scan. Thank you Nmap!
This is just a small part of Nmap’s capabilities. It can scan UDP ports and find all live hosts across a range IPs. It can also run scripts to identify common vulnerabilities in applications (e.g. unpatched Windows machines that have SMB open, which can allow for easy admin access). Nmap will be your best friend.
Hydra: The Best Kali Tool to Force Passwords
“Use strong passwords with special characters, numbers and symbols.
