25 Top Penetration Testing Tools for Kali Linux in 2024 (2024)

Are you ready to take your hacking to the next level? Kali Linux is the perfect platform for penetration testing and hacking, and the best way to hack is with the right tools. In this guide, we’ll provide an overview of the top 25 penetration testing tools for Kali Linux.

Whether you’re a pentesting newbie or ninja, you’ll be happy to learn about or recall the best penetration testing tools we use for enumeration, password cracking, web app security, on-path attacks, privilege escalation, network exploitation, pentesting frameworks, social engineering, and evasion.

If you haven’t yet, follow our tutorial to install Kali Linux. When you’re ready, let’s scroll down and get started.

Enumeration Tools

Before you begin hacking, you need to know your target’s vulnerabilities. In other words, every pentest begins with enumeration. The following tools are for reconnaissance, obtaining your attack surface, and learning the landscape of your battleground.

Nmap

Nmap is a network mapping tool. It scans individual targets or networks for available hosts and shows details about these devices, such as active ports and the services running on those ports that may interest you. See our Top 20 Nmap Commands article to start using it today.

Included with Kali

Bloodhound

Bloodhound sniffs out exploitable attack paths and weak links. It’s a single-page Javascript web application that uses the mathematics of graph theory to describe relationships between entities. It visualizes Active Directory object relationships and permissions between those relationships through the power of a graph database platform called Neo4j.

PowerView

PowerView is a complex PowerShell script that pentesters use to enumerate Active Directory over networks containing Windows hosts. It helps detect privilege escalation, locate where specific users, such as admins, have logged in to a network, and monitor existing logged-in sessions.

Password Cracking

Password cracking is programmatically uncovering an unknown or lost password to a computing or network resource. A threat actor can gain unauthorized access using a password cracker like the ones listed below.

Hydra

Hydra is a password cracker that runs on parallelized processing systems. It’s for brute-force cracking of usernames and passwords related to protocols such as FTP, SSH, Telnet, Microsoft SQL, and numerous others. Learn how to use Hydra here.

Included with Kali

John The Ripper

John the Ripper helps you find weak passwords and recover access to locked files. It can automatically alert users of easily compromised accounts via email. It has a separate graphical user interface called Johnny.

Included with Kali

Web Application Security

Web application security protects resources accessible online, such as static web pages, web apps, and APIs, from cyber vandalism, data theft, unethical competition, and other threats. Here are the bleeding-edge pentesting tools Kali has to offer.

sqlmap

sqlmap is an open-source pentesting tool that automates detecting and exploiting SQL injection flaws in database systems. It can help you enumerate targets, perform database fingerprinting, read and write to remote file systems, and crack passwords.

Included with Kali

Burp Suite

Burp Suite is an integrated collection of web application security tools covering many known flaws in web apps. It can enumerate and analyze an application’s attack surface and find and exploit security vulnerabilities.

Included with Kali (Burp Suite Community Edition)

ffuf

ffuf (short for “Fuzz Faster U Fool”) is a fast generator of web app data. It discovers elements and content within web applications or servers, such as directories and virtual hosts, without DNS records. It can fuzz GET and POST parameters for web apps or API pentesting.

Included with Kali

Intercepting Proxies

An intercepting proxy is an eavesdropper: a server that intercepts the connection between an end-user or device and the Internet but keeps the requests and responses involved unchanged. Here are the top penetration testing tools we’ve picked in this category.

Aircrack-ng

Aircrack-ng is a Wi-Fi pentesting software suite that hacks wireless networks using statistical analysis. Its capabilities include the following:

• Packet sniffing
• Cracking WEP and WPA/WPA2
• Capturing and deciphering hashes
• Cyber attacks, including replay attacks and fake access points (evil twin attacks)

Included with Kali

Responder

Responder is a credential harvesting and remote system access tool. It poisons LLMNR, NBT-NS, and MDNS protocols by mimicking harmless services. Once a Windows host communicates with Responder, Responder hijacks login credentials and relevant hashes for further use (you can learn passing-the-hash techniques here).

Included with Kali

bettercap

bettercap is a networking security framework for performing reconnaissance and attacks on multiple targets, such as Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth Low Energy devices, wireless Human Interface Devices, and IPv4/IPv6 networks. A major use of bettercap is sniffing or spoofing networks, making it ideal for man-in-the-middle (on-path) attacks.

Privilege Escalation

Privilege escalation is when a low-level user with limited capabilities takes on administrator or super admin permissions. Linux users are familiar with switching to the root user for app installations and major upgrades, while Windows users would be more familiar with Administrator or NT Authority\System. When you break into a system, you’ll get the level of whoever opens your payload, so it takes tools like those listed below to gain extra abilities.

Seatbelt

Seatbelt is a security auditing tool. It performs security checks, enumerates a system’s vulnerabilities, and manages host data collection that may interest the offensive and defensive parties in network security.

PowerUp

PowerUp is a Windows security auditing tool for rapidly checking privilege escalation vulnerabilities. It can’t check against all known privilege escalation techniques, but it’s good enough for basic attempts at local privilege escalation.

LinPEAS

LinPEAS (Linux Privilege Escalation Awesome Script) belongs to a family of privilege escalation scripts. It looks for privilege escalation pathways on Linux and some Unix operating systems such as macOS.

Network Exploitation

Network exploitation is computer espionage and data theft, keeping other functions unaffected. The main goals are to gain access to the network, perform reconnaissance, infiltrate the target systems, and obtain the desired information. Here are our top penetration testing tools to perform such a task.

CrackMapExec

CrackMapExec is an all-in-one pentesting toolkit targeting Windows/Active Directory environments. It can enumerate logged-in users, automatically inject malicious code into memory, store harvested credentials in a database, and exploit other vulnerabilities.

Included with Kali

Mimikatz

Mimikatz is a network pentesting Swiss Army Knife. Its main usage is to show the passwords of currently logged-in users using admin rights on Windows in plaintext. Other functions include Kerberoasting and password dumping.

Included with Kali

sshuttle

sshuttle is a cross between an intercepting proxy and a VPN, forwarding traffic over SSH. Its role in pentesting is to enable you to access remote hosts even if you’re not an admin.

Pentesting Frameworks

This section is exciting as we list our favorite self-contained and juicy pentesting toolkits.

Metasploit

Metasploit is a pentesting framework for investigating systematic vulnerabilities on networks and servers. It contains about 250 post-exploitation modules, including those for keylogging, enumeration, and remote code injection and execution, to name a few. If you’re new to Metasploit, run the command “msfrpcd -h” in the terminal for help notes.

Included with Kali

Empire/Starkiller

Empire is a post-exploitation and adversary emulation framework used to conduct system attacks. It can deploy post-exploitation modules such as keyloggers, Mimikatz, and adaptable communications to evade network detection. Starkiller, which doesn’t come with Kali, is a web app GUI. Mimikatz and Seatbelt are among its modules.

Covenant

Covenant is a .NET Command and Control (C2/C&C) Framework. Its purposes are to highlight the attack surface of .NET and conduct offensive .NET tradecraft. It includes a web-based interface that doubles as a collaborative C2 platform for red teamers.

Social Engineering

Social engineering is when you persuade a target to reveal specific information or unknowingly allow a threat actor to gain unauthorized access. Below we list our best tools for social engineering.

BeEF

BeEF (The Browser Exploitation Framework) is a pentesting tool that attaches itself to web browsers, making them the launchpad for further exploitation. It helps professional pentesters use client-side attack vectors to examine vulnerabilities of a target environment, such as mobile devices.

EvilGinx2

Evilginx2 is a man-in-the-middle attack framework. It lets you phish login credentials and intercept valid session cookies to bypass two-factor authentication. By using Evilginx2 to change DNS server records, you can trick people into authorizing sessions over which you have full control.

SET

SET (Social-Engineer Toolkit) is a penetration testing framework designed for social engineering. You can use it to conduct cyber ambushes such as phishing, smishing, spear-phishing, and caller ID spoofing. Learn how to use SET effectively here.

Included with Kali (setoolkit)

Evasion

Evasion means you bypass a security system, such as antivirus software, firewalls, routers, network switches, and intrusion detection devices. Pentesters need to be familiar with how threat actors would dodge various defenses. Here are our top tools for detecting opportunities for evasion.

Veil

Veil is a Metasploit payload generator to bypass common antivirus software, such as outwit their signature-matching capabilities. It can mask the signature of malware or a remote shell with elevated privileges through which an attacker gains access to a target.

evilgrade

evilgrade is a modular framework for spoofing, injecting attack payloads, and creating backdoors disguised as updates to existing apps. It’s useful when you have a fully patched target machine or one that updates itself often as a security measure.

Conclusion

We hope this list of penetration testing tools for Kali Linux is helpful in some way and that you make good use of it. Remember to check out our hacking tools cheat sheet and other articles and courses on Kali Linux. Don’t forget to leave a comment below on your favorite pentesting tools, whether we’ve mentioned them or not.

Frequently Asked Questions

Level Up in Cyber Security: Join Our Membership Today!

MEMBERSHIP