Today, cybercriminals use different tactics to carry out a cyber-attack. Social engineering is one of them. It is one of the most common techniques that can trick people into revealing their personal information over the internet. Almost “90% of data breaches have a social engineering component to them”. To prevent employees from falling prey to such attacks, organizations must educate them. Also, they can use different tools to test social engineering against their employees within the organization. 

Here in this article, we will talk about top Kali Linux tools that can help you perform social engineering pen-testing and identify weak points within the company.

What is Social Engineering?

Social Engineering is a technique used to manipulate people and make them share their sensitive information, including credentials, over the internet. The attacker pretends to be a legitimate person or from a reputable company. “An average organization is targeted by over 700 social engineering attacks each year”. The most common social engineering types include phishing attacks, spear phishing, tailgating, baiting, and pretexting. 

Best Social Engineering Tools

You can use these social engineering tools to test your employees and determine the number of people likely to become victims of a social engineering attack. The top social engineering tools for kali Linux include;

Wifiphisher

Wifiphisher is a social engineering tool used by ethical hackers or pen-testers to perform automated phishing attacks against a wifi network. It allows them to get passphrases or user credentials. Unlike other social engineering methods, Wifiphisher doesn’t indulge in brute forcing to attack wifi networks. Instead, it performs victim-customized phishing attacks to obtain credentials of the connected clients or to infect their network with malware.

Features

  • It is a powerful and flexible tool. 
  • This rogue Access Point framework can run for hours and contains phishing templates for several different scenarios.
  • It is easy to use and offers rich features for advanced users. Beginners can use the simpler version.
  • Free download and a complete source code is available that users may study, change or distribute.
  • It incorporates advanced attacks, including Known Beacons, Lure10, and exclusive phishing attacks.
  • It consists of an Interactive Textual User Interface for the ease of its users.

Metasploit Framework

Metasploit framework, also known as MSF, is a Ruby-based tool that ethical hackers or pen-testers can use to develop, test, and execute attacks against a remote host. It is one of the most used penetration testing frameworks, updated regularly for new exploits, and can be used in vulnerability testing systems. The Metasploit framework consists of all the security tools for penetration testing, in addition to msfconsole (a powerful terminal-based console) to help you find targets, exploit vulnerabilities, and collect all available valuable data. 

Features

  • MSF is open source and free to use and distribute.
  • Developers can choose their licensing terms.
  • It provides legal support for MSF contributors. 
  • It can scan remote targets and enumerate networks.

MSFvenom Payload Creator (MSFPC)

MSFvenom Payload Creator (MSFPC) is a user-friendly tool for Kali Linux that helps users generate basic payloads even with a minimum of one argument. It allows you to generate one of each payloads using a loop. Its batch feature enables you to mass-create payloads. Moreover, it is an automatic tool to help you generate multiple types of payloads as simply as possible. You have to define the payload you need, either by using the file extension or the platform you are dropping it on. 

Features

  • It is packaged in Kali Rolling. 
  • It can discover your external IP.
  • It can not bypass antivirus solutions at any point. 

Social Engineering Toolkit (SET)

As the name suggests, Social Engineering Toolkit (SET) is a social engineering tool used to execute attacks like phishing, vishing, etc. This open-source and free tool comes with Kali Linux, or you can download it from Github. A programmer Dave Kennedy designed this toolkit for security researchers and penetration testers to look for vulnerabilities within an organization. Different attacking techniques are performed on machines using SET to clone any website or conduct phishing attacks.

Features

  • You can launch different attacks using SET, including Wifi AP-based attacks, SMS or email attacks, web-based attacks, and the creation of payloads. 
  • It is portable, allowing you to switch attack vectors quickly.
  • It is a multi-platform tool.
  • Using the Social Engineering Toolkit, you can also access the Fast-Track Penetration Testing platform. 

Maltego

Maltego is a Kali Linux social engineering tool that can display connections between people and several information assets, such as social profiles, email addresses, screen names, or any information through which a person is linked to a service or organization. It is an Open-source Intelligence investigation tool (OSINT) to help you execute social engineering attacks so that organizations can evaluate their employees’ cybersecurity awareness. 

Features

  • It gives insight into the threats available in an organization’s environment. 
  • It uses Java and a graphical user interface to make it easy for users to see relationships.
  • Its powerful search utility enables you to discover hidden information.

Nikto

Nikto is a social engineering tool that allows ethical hackers and pen testers to execute a web server scan to identify security gaps in the system. It works by collecting results through default file names, app patterns, and software misconfigurations. Moreover, it is written in Perl and complements OpenVAS and several other vulnerability scanners.

Features

  • It can scan multiple ports.
  • It can output results into TXT, XML, HTML, CSV, or NBE.
  • It can identify installed software via files, headers, and favicons. 

Final Words

While we advance toward technology and digitization, hackers also use the latest techniques and tools to execute cyber-attacks. Modernized systems and technologies demand more excellent knowledge about cybersecurity. These tools play a vital role in helping organizations identify security vulnerabilities in their systems. Social engineering tools can evaluate your staff’s responsiveness to social engineering attacks. However, these tools are not available for illegal use. In the event of any incident, the developers and sponsors will not be responsible. 

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