Due to the increase in modern technologies, the rise of cybercrime is also increasing, which can lead to national security threats in the near future. Thus, there is a growing need for ethical hackers and ethical hacking tools. From malicious activities, ethical hackers protect the organization’s data and crucial information.

Therefore, in this article, extensive knowledge has been provided about ethical hacking and the top 10 ethical hacking tools that will be used in 2024. These tools are essential for cybersecurity professionals to stay ahead of potential threats and ensure robust security measures are in place. By leveraging these tools, organizations can protect their sensitive data, maintain their reputation, and prevent costly security breaches. The ongoing advancements in ethical hacking tools continue to shape the future of cybersecurity, making it imperative for IT professionals to stay updated with the latest trends and technologies.

What is Ethical Hacking?

Ethical Hacking is mainly defined as an authorized attempt to gain unauthorized access to computer systems, data, or applications. Therefore, it is the process of detecting the vulnerabilities in an application, system, or organization. Ethical hacking is mainly useful for cybersecurity as it is used to secure important data. It helps in preventing malicious attacks from exploring the organization.

Importance of Using Ethical Hacking Tools

Ethical hacking tools are crucial in the cybersecurity landscape for several key reasons:

• Efficient Vulnerability Detection: These tools quickly and accurately identify vulnerabilities within systems, applications, and networks, allowing organizations to address potential security weaknesses promptly.

• Comprehensive Security Assessments: Ethical hacking tools enable thorough security assessments, covering network scanning, penetration testing, application security, and data integrity checks.

• Automated Processes: Automation features in these tools streamline repetitive tasks, saving time and reducing human error.

• Real-time Monitoring and Alerts: Some tools offer real-time monitoring and alerts, helping organizations detect and respond to threats as they occur.

• Compliance and Reporting: Robust reporting features help organizations maintain compliance with industry standards and regulations, demonstrating due diligence to regulatory bodies.

• Enhanced Incident Response: In the event of a security breach, these tools assist in forensic analysis, identifying the entry point, extent of the breach, and attacker actions.

Top 10 Ethical Hacking Tools in 2024

There are multiple ethical hacking tools which are available in the market to use by software developers. Some of the top 10 Ethical hacking tools in 2024 are mentioned below:

1. Nmap(Network Mapper)

Nmap is a command line tool that was developed for the operating systems and is based on Linux Unix. This ethical tool is a type of network security mapper that is mainly used for identifying hosts and services on a network. It is also used for host discovery, security auditing, and network exploration.

Key Features

• Nmap is used for network scanning and auditing.
• It can search for the hosts which are connected to the network.
• It is used to detect all the services that are running on the host with the help of the operating systems.
• This tool is also used to detect any vulnerabilities in the networked systems.

2. Nikto

Nikto is another famous ethical tool that is used to scan and test various web servers for detecting software that is outdated, dangerous files, or CGIs. It is a type of open-source tool that checks the web servers and identifies more than 6400 files or CGIs which are mainly dangerous.

Key Features

• Nikto checks the servers for outdated versions and also version-specific problems.
• It also helps in checking the misconfigured files and plugins.
• The main purpose of this tool is to scan the web servers for dangerous files.
• It also helps in identifying insecure files and programs.

3. Recon-ng

Recon-ng is another ethical hacking tool which is a type of framework written in Python and this framework mainly consists of all important features which include database interaction, interactive help menus, and command completion utilities. This tool is used by ethical hackers for multiple purposes.

Key Features

• Recon-ng is used to reduce the time spent harvesting information from open sources.
• It also consists of various range of modules and database interaction.
• It is also used for collecting information into one centralized source for a database.

4. Wireshark

Wireshark is a type of open-source ethical tool that is mainly used for packet analysis. It is mainly equipped with a good user-friendly interface. This tool is one of the easiest tools that can be used for network monitoring and it is popularly known for its color coding features which help the users to identify the nature of the packets.

Key Features

• Wireshark helps to import dump packets from the capture file for further study.
• It also helps to save the tests as a capture file to work on future.
• Wireshark also helps to capture the filters and restrict the packets that the filter collects.
• Each packet in the Wireshark consists of color codes.

5. Metasploit

Metasploit is another famous ethical hacking tool that mainly provides a remote machine on which ethical hackers can test your scripts and hacks to verify their strength. This is a type of framework which gives helps ethical hackers to understand the security vulnerabilities of different systems.

Key Features

• Metasploit is an open-source user-friendly GUI setting that offers both a blind shell and a reverse shell.
• This tool helps to enable the creation of payloads.
• It also helps in deleting the infected system automatically.

6. Nessus

Nessus is a popular vulnerability assessment tool and ethical hacking software that can audit cloud infrastructures, and authenticate hosts present on the network. Therefore Nessus is a platform that was developed to scan for the security vulnerabilities in the applications, devices, and other network resources.

Key Features

• It provides the ability to develop configurable reports in a variety of formats.
• It consists of a Live results feature that performs intelligent vulnerability assessment in the offline mode with every plugin update.
• The Nessus packet captures the features that help enable the teams to debug and troubleshoot scanning issues easily and quickly.

7. njRAT

njRAT is an ethical hacking tool that was designed to damage or gain unauthorized access to a system which is known as malware. It is an example of a remote access trojan or RAT and it is one of the most dangerous hacking applications. It is a well-known ethical hacking tool in which the malware software is made to enter the systems without any permission.

Key Features

• It is one of the most dangerous applications which is a remote access trojan.
• In this, the malware software is made to enter into the systems without permission.
• In this, the attacker sends the trojan and gets remote access to the file systems and multiple other services.

8. John the ripper

It is one of the widely used tools which is mainly used as a password cracker. This tool mainly offers multiple capabilities and it is an open-source tool that may be utilized with a variety of operating systems. John the Ripper tool is free of cost and it is a well-known fast password cracker.

Key Features

• In this tool, a wide range of password crackers have been consolidated into a bundle or single platform.
• By using John the Ripper tool passwords can be identified automatically.
• This tool also helps enable the security practitioners to crack the passwords.

9. HashCat

HashCat is another powerful ethical hacking tool that consists of of best hacker programs and it may also assist users in recovering forgotten passwords. HashCat mainly runs on all operating systems and provides support to the CPUs, FPGAs, and GPUs.

Key Features

• HashCat mainly supports the operations of the password candidate brain.
• With the help of HashCat sessions are aided and it also provides support to interactive pause or resume.
• In HashCat the distributed cracking networks are being supported.

10. Acunetix

Acunetix is a type of ethical hacking tool that is used to identify and report multiple online applications and vulnerabilities including all the SQL Injection and the XSS variations. Therefore acunetix is an automated web application security testing tool that can audit the web application by checking for vulnerabilities.

Key Features

• It consists of validation tests and also determines the vulnerabilities which are real and which are false positives.
• It consists of a rapid crawling technology that can scan everything from simple pages to password-protected regions.
• It can also schedule fast and deep scans which are based on the needs.

Top 10 Ethical Hacking Tools in 2024: Feature Table