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Top 10 Cyber Security Tools You Must Know to be a Pro

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05th Sep, 2023
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    Top 10 Cyber Security Tools You Must Know to be a Pro

    Cyber Security is often referred to as Information security in the modern world. Nowadays most people are looking forward to starting their professional career or switching over to the cyber security domain because of its importance and crucial role playing in the IT industry. Hence it is very important to know the tools before you start your career which makes it easy for you to get adopted quickly. Here in this article, we will have a look at the top cyber security tools or cyber security software available and an overview of it. Most of the tools which are role-playing mentioned here are open source-based and well-documented tools.

    What is Cyber Security?

    Cyber Security is the practice of securing the organizations data or information from the cyber criminals. As the world is getting adopted to modern world, attackers are not following the traditional or old way of stealing data from the users. They are getting adopted to new technologies and tools that can be used to steal the data through digital medium. Cyber Security is like a cat and mice play where cyber attackers will try to penetrate the network and attack, while cyber defenders will block or stop the attackers from accessing their data. However, these fights are not in physical mode, they use various best cyber security tools for attacking and defending. The same tool can be used in both positive and negative mode. It is all in the mindset and motive of the person who is using the tool.

    As this cyber security field is getting enormous along with emerging tools. There are a lot of open-source tools available in the cyber market for several reasons. Cyber security practice is a crime if you are performing the activity without the company’s knowledge or the concern person’s knowledge. It is necessary to ensure all the security guidelines are read carefully. Nowadays cyber security domain is paving way for most IT people to make cyber security a primary domain in their professional life which will not only help the candidate to grow professionally but also personally. You can do cyber security certifications and gain relevant knowledge on this field. 

    Types of Cyber Security Tools

    There are many tools in cyber security based upon specific domains/areas of interest.

    • Security Information and Event Management Tools 
    • Vulnerability Assessment Tools 
    • Digital Forensic Tools 
    • Penetration Testing Tools 
    • Firewall Tools
    • IDS / IPS Tools 
    • Privileged Access Management Tools 
    • Endpoint Detection and Response Tools 
    • Network Detection and Response Tools 
    • Email Security Tools 
    • Data Loss Prevention Tools 

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    Top 10 Cyber Security Tools

    Here is the cyber security tools list you should now.

    1. NMAP 
    2. Wireshark 
    3. Metasploit 
    4. Aircrack 
    5. Hashcat 
    6. Burpsuite
    7. Nessus Professional 
    8. Snort 
    9. Intruder 
    10. Kali Linux 

    NOTE: Using these tools is restricted/unauthorized networks can take legal action against your activities.

    1. NMAP

    NMAP, short form for Network Mapper is an open-source tool used for scanning the networks. This tool is mainly useful to discover hosts, information gathering about the network devices on which service or port is open publicly and identify security vulnerabilities, uptime of the host device. NMAP supports major OS platforms like Windows, Linux and even MAC OS. The main advantage of this tool is flexible, easily portable, free, and well documented steps.

    You can download the NMAP tool in their official portal https://nmap.org/download.html

    2. Wireshark

    Wireshark is one of the tools which is used globally by many for analyzing network protocol. This tool will help you to capture using pcap, store and analyze each packet in a detailed fashion. Wireshark supports OS platforms like Windows, Linux, Solaris, macOS etc. Wireshark is also an open-source tool similar to the tcpdump with a user interface option. The main features of Wireshark are that real-time data can be analyzed from different types of protocols. Also colour coding feature is available in the platform to show the packets when it matches any specific rule. This tool will capture packets only from the pcap-supported networks.

    You can download the tool from the official website https://www.wireshark.org/#download

    3. Metasploit

    Metasploit is a powerful and famous open-source penetration testing tool used in cyber security industry. This tool will be used by cyber attackers and as well as cyber defenders. All that matters is that how they use the tool. Metasploit has many inbuilt modules which can be used for exploiting, payload executions, auxiliary functions, encoding, listening, executing shell codes, Nops. This tool can be used to perform security assessments that enhance the company’s security posture.

    You can download the tool from the official website https://www.metasploit.com/download

    4.Aircrack-ng

    Aircrack-ng comes with a package of security tools to assess WiFi network security controls. It covers on monitoring, attacking, testing, cracking WiFi security. This tool is mainly used by hackers to hack WiFi by cracking WEP, WAP, WAP2 encryption techniques. This tool has sniffing and packet injection features. This tool is available for Windows, Linux, macOS, Solaris, OpenBSD, FreeBSD.

    You can download the tool from the official link https://www.aircrack-ng.org/downloads.html

    5. Hashcat

    Hashcat is a globally used tool for cracking passwords. Almost 250+ hashing algorithms are supported by this tool. This tool supports Windows, Linux and macOS platforms. The main features of this tool are very fast, flexible, versatile and an open-source tool that will help a person perform brute-force attacks by several hash values. Hashing algorithms like LM, MD-family and SHA-family are supported. Hashcat can be used to perform various cyber attacks like brute-force attacks, combinator attacks, dictionary attacks, fingerprint attacks, mask attacks, hybrid attacks, permutation attacks, Toggle-Case attacks, rule-based attacks, etc.

    You can download the tool from the official website https://hashcat.net/hashcat/ 

    6. Burp suite

     

    Burp suite is a combined platform of several tools which are used in the penetration testing field. This is the favourite tool for all pen testers and bug bounty hunters. This tool was developed by the company “Port Swigger”. There are various tools like Spider, Proxy, Intruder, Repeater, Sequencer, Decoder, Extender, Scanner etc., which are used for different security testing processes. This tool can be used at project-level as well as at user-level.

    You can download the community edition of this tool from its official website https://portswigger.net/burp/communitydownload

    7. Nessus Professional

    Nessus Professional is a commercial tool used for vulnerability assessment. This tool can help you to find security flaws, security vulnerabilities, information about outdated patches, misconfigurations of systems, servers, and network devices as well. This tool can also be used for compliance and auditing purposes. This tool is an advanced tool where all the said features are automated. Basic network scan, advanced scan, advanced dynamic scan, malware scan, mobile device scan, web application tests, credential patch audit, badlock detection, bash shellshock detection, DROWN detection, Intel AMT Security Bypass, Shadow brokers scan, spectre and meltdown, WannaCry ransomware are the types of vulnerability scans available in the platform. Audit Cloud Infrastructure, Policy Compliance Auditing, Offline Config Audit, SCAP and OVAL Auditing are some of the options available for compliance perspective.

    8. Snort

    Snort is one of the best open-source IPS / IDS tool. This tool uses a set of rules that will help to identify the malicious activity and generate security alerts to the users. Snort can also be deployed in the first layer of network to block the malicious sources. Snort can be functioned and deployed for both personal and official purposes. Sniffer can be configured in three modes “Sniffer mode, Packet logger mode, Network Intrusion Detection System mode”. This tool is developed by Cisco Systems. 

    You can download the tool from the official website https://www.snort.org/downloads

    9. Intruder

    Intruder is a vulnerability scanner tool to perform cyber security assessments, vulnerabilities across your company’s structure. This tool can look for security patches, web application attacks like SQL injection, cross-site scripting, CSRF etc, applications that are configured with default passwords etc. It is commercial tool that has three versions “Pro, Essential, Verified”. 

    10. Kali Linux

    Kali Linux is an open-source and advanced penetration testing tool. The main objective of developing this tool is to act as cyber attackers and ethical hackers. Kali Linux comes up with a pack of 600+ tools like Aircrac-ng, Autopsy, Burp Suite, Hashcat, John the ripper, Maltego, Nmap, OWASP ZAP, Sqlmap, WPScan, Nessus, Hydra, Wireshark, Nikto, Vulnhub, Metasploit framework etc, that can be used for specific cyber security purposes. Kali-Linux is a Debian-based Linux distribution tool that is maintained and developed by Offensive Security. 

    To get a deeper understanding for the above tools, enroll in KnowledgeHut’s cyber security certifications. 

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    Conclusion

    By now, you must have got an idea on the top 10 tools which are used in cyber industry. These tools are useful for your career in cyber security domain as a fresher. You will come across many cyber security tools/monitoring tools in your work as your experience is getting bigger. If you want to enhance your skills in cyber security, you can start using these tools initially and gain more knowledge. All these tools will give an idea on how attackers are using these tools to find vulnerabilities and with the found vulnerabilities, how they are penetrating inside the network to gain the advantage of user’s data or information. 

    Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

    1What are cyber security tools?

    Cyber Security tools are the tools that are used by cyber experts for performing attacks and for detecting purposes. The same tool can be used in both positive and negative mode. Its all in the mindset and motive of the person who is using the tool.

    2What are the types of cyber security tools?

    There are many tools in cyber security based upon specific domains/areas of interest.

    • Security Information and Event Management Tools 
    • Vulnerability Assessment Tools 
    • Digital Forensic Tools 
    • Penetration Testing Tools 
    • Firewall Tools 
    • IDS / IPS Tools 
    • Privileged Access Management Tools 
    • Endpoint Detection and Response Tools 
    • Network Detection and Response Tools 
    • Email Security Tools 
    • Data Loss Prevention Tools 
    3What are the types of cyber security?
    • Critical infrastructure security. 
    • Application security. 
    • Network security. 
    • Cloud security. 
    • Internet of Things (IoT) security. 
    4Is cyber security a well-paid job?

    Yes, of course. As the threats in cyber world is getting maximum, the demand for cyber security job profiles is also getting bigger to detect those attacks and take required steps. In recent years, cyber security is one of the highly profitable domain for both companies and as well as for employees.

    Profile

    Hariharann R

    Author

    I am a pragmatic security professional in SOC Operations & SIEM Engineering at CyberGate Defense, UAE with an Electronics and Telecommunication background. I am very much interested in SIEM Implementation, Threat Hunting, Creating Use Cases, Digital Forensics, Investigation and Analysis, etc. I spend my leisure time playing cricket, football and watch movies of various genres with friends. 

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