Top 5 Tools for Every Security Admin

Security administrators whose intents are to secure their organization's network(s) should have these 5 tools in their tool box which are also used by well known hackers.

Nessus is the world's most popular open-source vulnerability scanner used in over 75,000 organizations world-wide. http://www.nessus.org


Nmap is a free open source utility for network exploration or security auditing. It was designed to rapidly scan large networks, although it works fine against single hosts. Nmap uses raw IP packets in novel ways to determine what hosts are available on the network, what services (application name and version) those hosts are offering, what operating systems (and OS versions) they are running, what type of packet filters/firewalls are in use, and dozens of other characteristics. Nmap runs on most types of computers and both console and graphical versions are available. http://www.insecure.org

NetStumbler is a tools for windows that allows you to to detect Wireless
Local Area Networks (WLANs) using 802.11b and 802.11g.
http://www.netstumbler.com/downloads

NetView is a suite of three security tools for the system administrator or home user. NetView scans IP addresses for available Windows File & Print Sharing resources, PortScan scans IP addresses for listening TCP ports, and WebBrute scans web directories that are protected with HTTP authentication, testing the strength of the users' passwords. This suite is freeware penetration analysis software that will run on your Windows workstation. http://www.rawlogic.com/netview.

Winhex is a universal hexadecimal editor, particularly helpful in the realm of computer forensics, data rocovery, low-level data processing, and IT security. An advanced tool for everyday and emergency use: inspect and edit all kinds of files, recover deleted files or lost data from hard drives with corrupt file systems or from digital camera cards. http://www.x-ways.net/winhex/index-m.html