Datasheet

Part I: Building the Foundation for Ethical Hacking

Selecting tools

As with any project, if you don’t have the right tools for ethical hacking, you

might have difficulty accomplishing the task effectively. Having said that, just

because you use the right tools doesn’t mean that you’ll discover all the right

vulnerabilities.

Know the personal and technical limitations. Many vulnerability scanners

generate false positives and negatives (incorrectly identifying vulnerabili-

ties). Others just skip right over vulnerabilities altogether. In certain situa-

tions, you might need to run multiple vulnerability scanners to find the

most vulnerabilities.

Many tools focus on specific tests, and no tool can test for everything. For

the same reason you wouldn’t drive a nail with a screwdriver, don’t use a

word processor to scan your network for open ports. This is why you need

a set of specific tools for the task. The more (and better) tools you have, the

easier your ethical hacking efforts are.

Make sure you’re using the right tool for the task:

✓ To crack passwords, you need cracking tools, such as ophcrack and

Proactive Password Auditor.

A general port scanner, such as SuperScan or Nmap, won’t work for

cracking passwords and rooting out detailed vulnerabilities.

✓ For an in-depth analysis of a Web application, a Web application assess-

ment tool (such as N-Stalker or WebInspect) is more appropriate than a

network analyzer (such as Wireshark).

When selecting the right security tool for the task, ask around. Get advice

from your colleagues and from other people online. A simple groups search on

Google (http://groups.google.com), LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) or

a perusal of security portals, such as http://SecurityFocus.com and

http://SearchSecurity.com, often produces great feedback from other

security experts about what works and what doesn’t.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of tools can be used for ethical hacking — from

software-based vulnerability scanner programs to hardware-based network

analyzers. The following list runs down some of my favorite commercial, free-

ware, and open source security tools:

✓ Cain & Abel

✓ OmniPeek