Testing the network for penetration: necessary tools

Today, cybersecurity is receiving increased attention from system administrators and other professionals working in this field. And you can’t do without specialized tools when performing these works. So, to identify vulnerabilities in the network and software products, the modern IT-technology market offers many individual solutions. Surely many of you have already heard about such a term as pentest. This is a method for assessing the security of computer networks and systems using hacker attack simulation tools. It allows you to perform penetration testing, thereby revealing the vulnerabilities of your system.

Now we will dwell in more detail on what tools and tools can be used in the field of network security to conduct complex testing. Let's look at the main categories: scanning, monitoring, network intrusion IDs, hacker traps, full packet capture, sniffer-based network security tool, and SIEM tools for network security. We will show you how to ensure the highest possible security of work and protection from any unauthorized access using mobile proxies.

Tools for system scanning

In this category, we highlight 7 main tools that will become a reliable assistant in organizing your cybersecurity system:

1. OpenVAS. It is a platform consisting of several tools and services. Offers comprehensive solutions in the field of vulnerability management and detection.
2. Kali Linux. One of the distributions of the Linux operating system, built on the Debian open source operating system. Designed specifically for pentest and digital forensics. A huge number of applications are built into it, including port scanner, packet sniffer, wireless penetration testing software package local networks, password cracker.
3. Pig. Using this tool, you will be able to package Linux.
4. Pompem. Another open source network security tool. It is intended to automate the process of searching for exploits in key databases.
5. Metasploit. Today it is one of the most advanced network security tools designed to develop and implement exploit code on a target remote machine. It also provides a database of opcodes, a set of related studies, and an archive of shellcodes.
6. Scapy. It is an interactive program with a built-in library designed for fast and convenient development of all data packages built in python.
7. Nmap. It is a free and open source utility with which you can efficiently perform security auditing and network discovery.

Network intrusion detection tools

The following tools can be used as network intrusion identifiers:

1. Snort. It is a free open source network intrusion prevention system (NIPS). It also includes a Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS).
2. OSSEC. A multi-platform system that can be easily scaled if necessary. Designed for open source host-based intrusion detection. Her responsibilities include analyzing logs, monitoring policies, checking file integrity, detecting rootkits, actively responding, including real-time alerts. It is highly stable in most modern operating systems: macOS, HIDS Linux, Windows, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX. The system has a fairly large set of documentation that greatly simplifies the work. Capable of medium to large deployments. Mastering this tool will require a lot of time from you, but the result from its use will be more than impressive.
3. Zeek. A fairly powerful open source platform that provides complex network analysis.
4. Suricata. Open source software designed to detect IDS information security issues. Capable of diagnosing network attacks and any other unauthorized traffic.
5. Sshwatch. Represents a set of IP addresses intended for SSH. They are quite similar to DenyHosts, only written in the Python programming language. They also allow you to collect information about the attacker in the log during the attack for later analysis.
6. Security Onion. It is a Linux distribution focused on intrusion detection, log management, and network security monitoring of Ubuntu. It also provides security tools such as Suricata, Snort, OSSEC, Bro, Squert, Sguil, ELSA, Snorby, NetworkMiner, Xplico, etc.
7. Stealth. With this tool, a virtually traceless file integrity check can be performed. The controller itself will be launched from a separate device, so the hacker will not have information that the file system is being checked using pseudo-random time intervals via SSH. This option will be optimal for small and medium deployments.
8. Denyhosts. This tool helps prevent brute-force and dictionary-based SSH attacks.
9. AI Engine. It is a programmable interactive engine for testing next-generation packages based on programming languages such as Python, Ruby, Java, Lua. A distinctive feature — the possibility of learning without human intervention. There are also Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS) functions, DNS domain classification, network forensics, network data collector, etc.
10. Lynis. Open source security auditing for Linux /Unix can be performed with this tool.
11. SSH Guard. This application is focused on protecting services. Written in C and acts as a complement to SSH.
12. Fail2Ban. This tool is designed to scan file logs, and perform certain actions with suspicious IP addresses (clearly demonstrate malicious behavior).

Network monitoring tools

To perform continuous monitoring of networks and logging services, you can use one of the following tools:

1. Justniffer. It is a network protocol analyzer capable of capturing traffic and generating logs based on settings made by specialists. One of the – emulation of file logs of the Apache Internet service. It can also track the response time and remove from HTTP traffic all those traffic that could be intercepted.
2. Ngrep. This is a tool whose functions include pcap support. It allows users to specify hexadecimal or extended regular expressions to match against data packet payloads. This tool works through Ethernet, SLIP, PPP, Token Ring, FDDI, null interfaces, is able to recognize IPv4/6, ICMPv4/6, TCP, UDP, IGMP, Raw. It also understands BPF filtering logic and the more common snoop and tcpdump packet snooping tools.
3. HTTPRY. This is a special packet analyzer with which you can log HTTP traffic and display it. That is, the functionality of this tool does not include analysis. It only collects data from traffic and passes it on to further development. If necessary, you can run this analyzer in real time. In this case, the traffic will be displayed as it is analyzed. Another option to customize — registration in the output file. Thanks to the increased flexibility of settings, this tool can be easily adapted to work with different applications.
4. Sagan. A tool designed to analyze logs, be it event log, syslog, netflow, snmptrap. It uses an engine identical to Snort.
5. Passivedns. In the field of network security, this tool is one of the best. Designed for passive collection of DNS server records. It is also capable of monitoring network security, simplifying incident handling, and performing general digital forensics. With it, you can monitor traffic from the interface or read pcap files, redirect responses from DNS servers to log files. With passive DNS, duplicate responses can be aggregated or cached in memory, thereby minimizing the amount of data that is sent to the log file for storage. This preserves the values in the DNS response.
6. Node security framework. It is a free-to-use tool designed to identify and fix vulnerabilities in various Node.js projects. With their help, software developers can easily and quickly identify security problems in their own code and fix them, thereby minimizing the likelihood of hacker attacks on a particular application.
7. Fibratus. A tool designed to track and explore the core of the Windows operating system. Its capabilities include fixing most of the activity of the OS kernel, as well as the formation and termination of threads and processes, the registry, input and output of the file system, network activity, loading and unloading DLLs, etc. Thanks to a very simple command line interface, it became possible to encapsulate the mechanism that launches a streaming kernel event collector, as well as setting filters here or running lightweight Python modules.
8. Ntopng. This is a tool designed specifically for checking network traffic. With it, you can analyze streaming network traffic, including identifying and diagnosing performance-related issues. Another feature — monitoring various network resources, including the use of channels.

Traps for hackers

We are talking about systems such as HoneyPot/HoneyNet. Their task is to lure hackers into a trap. A cybercriminal follows such a bait and attacks it, while experts at this time collect information about the methods used, or distract attackers from other more important goals. From this category, we highlight the following tools:

1. HoneyPy. It is an open source software designed to detect and collect data about attacks and the attackers themselves. Allows you to create virtual listeners for protocols such as HTTP, FTP, Telnet, etc. Based on them, interaction with intruders is monitored. As a result, it is possible to obtain reliable data about session identifiers, IP addresses from which the attack is being carried out, and the software used. Based on the data received, it will be much easier to build the right protection system.
2. Conpot. This low-interactivity honeypot is designed specifically to work in industrial control systems. Used on the server side, easy to deploy, extend and modify.
3. Dionaea. Another open tool that allows you to track incidents in network security, including all types of attacks, viruses, spyware, etc. It can be used to detect vulnerabilities in your own network equipment or software. Great for gathering information about the methods hackers use during an attack.
4. Amun. Lure based on the low-interaction Python programming language.
5. Kippo. Represents an SSH HoneyPot Interaction Medium. Main purpose— registering attacks by enumeration.
6. Glastopf. Using this tool, you will be able to monitor network security incidents. With it, you can emulate an unlimited number of vulnerabilities, which will help to collect the maximum amount of data regarding attacks aimed at an Internet application.
7. Kojoney. A low-level honeypot capable of emulating the actions of an SSH server. This daemon uses the Twisted Conch library and the Python programming language.
8. Honey Drive. One of the most popular HoneyPot Linux distributions. It includes over a dozen pre-installed and configured software packages, including Kippo, Amun, Dionaea, Wordpot, Glastopf, Conpot, PhoneyC, Thug.
9. HonSSH. A tool with a high level of interaction. It will be located between the trap itself and the attacker, forming two parallel connections.
10. Cuckoo Sandbox. It is an open source application aimed at automating the analysis of suspicious files. It uses special custom components that can track the behavioral factors of malware when it is in an isolated environment.
11. Bifrozt. This tool is a NAT device with a DHCP server. To deploy it, they use one network card directly connected to the Internet, and another one to connect to the local network. Able to work as a transparent proxy server in the chain between the honeypot and the attacker.

Sniffer based network security tools

In this category, we have collected programs that are designed to intercept and then analyze network traffic:

1. Netsniff-ng. A free networking tool created specifically for the Linux operating system. Due to the presence of a zero-copy mechanism, it will have a higher performance in comparison with analogues. You don't have to manually copy packages from kernel space to user space or vice versa when transferring them.
2. Live HTTP headers. This free software product is an add-on to Firefox. With it, you can view all browser requests in real time. The program will display full titles. You can also use it to find security loopholes in implementations.
3. Wireshark. It is a free and open source packet sniffer. With it, you can troubleshoot network problems, perform software development, analysis of its operation, create communication protocols and training. It has a graphical interface, as well as built-in tools for filtering and sorting.

Full Packet Capture Toolkit

The following tools can be used to fully capture packets, often referred to in practice as forensic analysis:

1. Tcpflow. An application capable of capturing parameters that are passed as part of TCP connections. Its distinctive feature — the ability to save data in a format that would be most convenient for subsequent analysis and debugging of the protocol.
2. Moloch. Another open source system in our selection. Focused on large-scale IPv4 packet capture (PCAP) as well as indexing. It features a simple and user-friendly interface. With it, you will not be able to change the IDS engine, because it will work with them. This way you can provide convenient storage and indexing of all network traffic in PCAP format, which will become the key to quick access. With this tool, you will be able to scale the parameters for processing when deployed to different systems.
3. Dshell. Using this platform, you can perform network forensic analysis. It is endowed with wide functionality for the rapid development of plug-ins designed to provide the ability to analyze intercepted network packets.
4. Open FPC. It includes a whole set of tools, the action of which is aimed at a simple and convenient system for recording and buffering network traffic. With its help, even those people who do not consider themselves experts can deploy a distributed network flow recorder on COTS equipment. This is provided by the ability to integrate with existing log and alert management tools.
5. Xplico. Using this tool, you can extract parameters from Internet traffic that are inside applications. So, you will be able to extract all HTTP content, all emails, different types of calls, etc. You must understand that this tool— it is not a network protocol analyzer, but directly a solution in the field of network forensic analysis. The program is open source.
6. Stenographer. With this application you can capture packages, download them to disk. In post-processing, this tool will give you the fastest possible access to each of the subsets of these packages.

Network Security Toolkit

The last set of tools that we will focus on in today's — these are SIEM network security programs. Let's pay attention to three main tools:

1. Prelude. It is a universal SIEM system for collecting, sorting, normalizing, combining and comparing all security events. It will work regardless of the availability of a license, the brand of the product that caused this event. Able to inform the user about detected problems.
2. FIR. A product specifically designed for cybersecurity incident management.
3. OSSIM. This tool includes all the features that a security specialist will need from SIEM programs: collection of events, their normalization and subsequent correlation.

Summing up

Now you are very familiar with what tools you can use to identify potential threats when working on a network. But, most of all these dangers can be easily prevented by additional connection to the work of mobile proxies. Such an intermediary server will ensure the replacement of your real user data with your own, provides them with the most reliable hiding of your IP-address and geolocation. This is the easiest way to avoid any dangers when browsing the Internet, including hacker attacks and any other unauthorized access, as well as to ensure complete privacy of your browsing experience.

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