Ethical Hacking Tools & Softwares 2025

Ethical Hacking Tools For Windows 10 & Linux

 

The term “hacking” is like a nightmare for the private and public sectors. As technology is witnessing tremendous progress, cybercrime is reaping benefits from it. Professional hackers may bypass the security systems of the computer and steal confidential data. So, cyber specialists are worried about hacking tools.

On the other hand, ethical hacking is an authorized method of identifying the weaknesses within the network, with the help of certain tools. It involves breaking into the computers to check the defenses of the computer.

Several organizations employ ethical hackers to identify the weaknesses in their systems. Ethical hackers identify and highlight the defects to the clients. The clients immediately rectify the defects before any cybercriminals take advantage of the defects.

Ethical hackers use a lot of tools to get past the defense systems undetected. Here, it is important to choose ethical hacking tools wisely. Thousands of ethical hacking tools are available online free of cost with expert tips However, they may contain malware. Employers generally look for experienced ethical hackers, who possess a professional toolkit.

 

Ethical Hacking Tools

 

1. Burp Suite - Application Security Testing Software

 

This ethical hacking tool is commonly used to perform security testing of web applications. It has several tools that work together to fully support the testing process- from the initial mapping to an analysis of the attack surface of the application. This tool is primarily used to find and exploit the security vulnerability.

This tool is easy to use. It provides full control to the administrators so that they may combine advanced manual techniques with automation. Burp suite downloads and may be easily organized. It has several features that provide helpful information for experienced testers.

 

2. Metasploit - Penetration Testing Software

 

It is one of the most powerful ethical hacking tools. It has a free edition and a commercial edition.

Metasploit allows the users to perform the following operations-

• Discover the network
• Import the scan data
• Conduct fundamental penetration tests on small networks
• Run spot checks on the extent to which the weaknesses may be identified
• It allows the network administrators to break into their personal networks. This way, they can identify the security risks.
• Hackers who have just started their career may practice their skills
• It allows the network administrators to document which vulnerabilities need to be addressed first. Platforms like Linux and Windows support it.
• It allows the hackers to replicate websites for phishing or other social engineering purposes

It may be used with Web UI or command prompt.

 

3. Cain and Abel hacking tool

 

It is a password recovery tool for Microsoft Operating Systems. It helps recover passwords easily by employing any of the following methods-

• Recording VoIP conversations
• Decoding scrambled passwords
• Revealing Password Boxes
• Recovering Wireless Network Keys
• Cracking encrypted passwords with the help of Brute-force and Cryptoanalysis attacks
• Uncovering cached passwords
• Analyzing routing protocols
• Sniffing the network

 

4. Angry Ip Scanner

 

Angry IP Scanner is a cross-platform IP address and port scanner. This lightweight scanner may be freely copied and used anywhere. Angry IP Scanner uses a multi-threaded approach to increase the scanning speed.

Angry IP Scanner is able to scan IP addresses at any range. It just pings each IP address to confirm whether it is alive. Then, it resolves its hostname, scans ports, and determines the MAC addresses. The amount of data that has been collected about each host may be saved to TXT, XML, IP-PORT files list, or CSV. It may also collect any information about the scanned IPS, with the help of plugins.

 

5. Super Scan Ethical Hacking Tool

 

Network administrators find it to be a popular tool for scanning TCP ports. It also resolves hostnames. The user-friendly interface of Super Scan may be used in the following ways-

• Connecting to any discovered open port
• Viewing responses from connected ports
• Performing ping scans and port scans with the help of any IP range
• Merges port lists to build new ones
• Assigning a custom-helper application to any port
• Scans any port range from an in-built list or a given range.

 

6. NMAP Nmap stands for Network Mapper

 

This open-source ethical hacking tool is used far and wide. This ethical hacking tool had originally been designed to scan large networks. However, it is also suitable for single hosts. This cross-platform tool works on Linux, MAC, and Windows. It is a popular tool among hackers because of its powerful scanning and searching ability.

Network administrators normally use NMAP for the following tasks-

• Network inventory
• Monitoring host
• Service uptime
• Managing network upgrade schedules
• Audit device security
• Find vulnerabilities within the network
• Launch massive DNS queries against domains and subdomains

It works on all the major computer operating systems, such as MAC, Windows, and Linux.

 

7. SQLNinja

 

It is an ethical hacking tool, dedicated to exploit and target web apps that use MS SQL Server as the backend database server. It also acts as an SQL vulnerability scanner, that is bundled with Kali Linux distribution. This ethical hacking tool helps in-

• Testing Database Schema
• Brute force attack with a word list
• Direct shell and reverse shell
• Fingerprint remote database

 

8. Kismet

 

This ethical hacking tool is commonly used. It works in Linux and Windows Operating Systems. It works with any wireless card that supports raw monitoring mode.

 

9. Wapiti - web application vulnerability scanner

 

It is not counted among the most popular ethical hacking tools. It is a free, open-source command line-based vulnerability scanner. Written in Python, this ethical hacking tool does a powerful job of identifying the security issues in several web applications. It helps the ethical hackers identify the security loopholes and-

• XSS Attacks
• Server-side request forgery
• SQL injections
• Xpath Injections

 

10. Canvas

 

This ethical hacking tool is an alternative to Metasplit. Its features include-

• Taking screenshots of remote systems
• Modifying files within the system
• Escalating privileges to collect administrator access
• Exploiting remote network
• Downloading passwords

 

This ethical hacking tool offers more than eight thousand exploits to test remote networks. Canvas offers-

 

• An automated exploitation system
• Comprehensive reliable exploits development framework to security professionals and penetration testers all over the world
• Several exploits
• It allows professional ethical hackers to use its renowned shellcode generator or write new exploits
• It integrates an alternative to NMAP, known as Scanrand. It is especially useful for host discovery and port scanning over mid to large networks
• This ethical hacking tool is supported by platforms like Linus, Windows MACOSX.

 

11. John The Ripper

 

It is one of the most popular ethical hacking tools. John The Ripper is known for testing the password strength in the operating system. This ethical hacking tool is also efficient for auditing a password remotely. It uses brute force technology to decipher passwords and algorithms like MD5, DES, Blowfish and Kerberos AFS.

This password cracker may automatically detect the type of encryption used in almost any password. Then, it changes its password test algorithm accordingly. As a result, it is known as the most intelligent password cracking tool ever. This open-source, multi-platform ethical hacking tool is available for Windows, Linux, MAC, and Android.

 

12. Nikto

 

This popular ethical hacking tool is anothernpart of the Kali Linux distribution. This security tool is used to performndifferent types of tests against the specified remote host. It is also used tonscan web servers. The chief features of Nikto are as follows-

• Detecting default installation files on any operating system
• Integrating with Metasploit network
• Detecting obsolete software applications
• Executing dictionary-based brute force attacks
• Running cross-site vulnerability tests
• Executing the results in plain text, CSV, or HTML files

This ethical hacking tool has a simple and clean command-line interface. Such an interface simplifies the process of launching any vulnerability testing against the target.

 

13. Wireshark

 

This free and open-source software lets the network administrators analyze network traffic on a real-time basis, according to the sniffing technology. It is able to detect security problems in any network. This ethical hacking tool is also effective in solving general networking problems. Its main features include-

• Saving analysis for offline inspection
• Rich VoIP analysis
• Packet Browser
• Inspecting and decompressing gzip files
• Reading other capture file formats like Microsoft Network Monitor, Sniffer Pro, and Cisco Secure IDS IPlog
• Exporting the results to XML or plain text
• The network administrators are able to intercept and read the results in the human-readable format while sniffing the network. As a result, it becomes simpler to identify the potential problems and vulnerabilities.

This ethical hacking tool supports up to two thousand different network protocols. It is available on all the major operating systems like Linux and Windows.

 

14. GFI Languard

 

It is an ethical hacking tool that scans networks to identify weaknesses. It may act as the virtual security consultant on demand. The most important features of this ethical hacking tool are as follows-

• Centrally analyzing network
• Identifying the security threats at an initial stage
• Helping to maintain a secure network over time. As a result, it knows which changes are impacting the network. The network administrators find it easier to fix vulnerabilities before an attack.
• Creating an asset inventory of every device
• Centralizes vulnerability scanning. As a result, the cost of ownership is reduced.
• A secure and compliant network is maintained.

 

15. Ettercap

 

It is one of the best ethical hacking tools. Ettercap supports active and passive dissection of several protocols. This ethical hacking tool has a variety of features A few of its features are as follows-

• Capable of sniffing an SSH connection in full-duplex
• Permits the creation of custom plugins with the help of Ettercap’s API
• Permits sniffing of HTTP SSL secured data, even after the connection is made through the proxy
• Its characters may be injected into a client or into a server while maintaining a live connection
• Uses the feature of ARP poisoning to sniff on a LAN that is switched between two hosts.

 

16. Aircrack

 

It is one of the most trustworthy ethical hacking tools available in the market. It is empowered by WEP, WPA and WPA 2 encryption keys. A few of its features are as follows-

• Supports against WEP dictionary attacks
• Supports against fragmentation attacks
• Supports more cards/drivers
• Cracks vulnerable wireless connections

 

17. Hashcat

 

This robust ethical hacking tool helps users recover lost passwords. It is also useful in auditing password security or finding out what data is stored in a hash. A few of its features are as follows-

• Allows the utilization of multiple devices in the same system
• Supports distributed cracking network
• Supports resume and sessions
• Has an integrated thermal watchdog
• It is an open-source ethical hacking tool
• Offers multi-platform support
• Utilizes mixed device type in the same system
• Supports automatic performance tuning
• Supports distributed cracking networks

 

18. Rainbow Crack

 

This popular ethical hacking tool uses a time-memory tradeoff algorithm for hacking. Its features are as follows-

• Supports rainbow table in raw file format and compact file format
• Supports rainbow table of any hash algorithm,
• Computation on multi-core processor support
• Crack hashes with rainbow tables
• Provides a rainbow table unified file format on every supported OS
• GPU acceleration with multiple GPUS
• Provides computation on multi-core processor support
• Provides command line and graphical user interface
• Has full-time, memory trade-off tool suites, including rainbow table generation
• It is supported on Windows OS and Linux

 

19. Medusa

 

It is one of the best online ethical hacking tools. A few of its features are as follows-

• Its chief aim is to support as many services that allow remote authentication
• The user input is flexible. It may be specified in different ways
• All the service modules exist as an independent mod file
• The core application does not need any modifications to extend the supported list of services for brute-forcing
• It allows the performance of thread-based parallel testing and brute-force testing
• It is designed to become massively popular and speedy

 

Above is the list of the top 19 ethical hacking tools. As a hacker, these tools are quite useful to analyze cybersecurity flaws in the system. Same way CEH training is of utmost importance. Vinsys conducting CEH training with an updated syllabus and with a practical approach with industry expert trainers

 

Conclusion- A few hacking tools in the market are open-source, while others are for commercial purposes. However, ethical hackers need to get written permission from the target site while launching a penetration attack. Otherwise, even a hacking attempt with a clear intention may land the ethical hacker in legal trouble.