Top 8 Tools for Brute Force Attacks

Posted on by Rimsha Ashraf

We’ve all heard the stories: a hacker breaks into your account, steals your money, and you have no idea how they did it. That’s why it’s important to know how to defend against brute-force attacks. Brute force attacks are a serious problem. They cost businesses tens of millions of dollars, and they can result in data breaches and identity theft.

In fact, there have been several high-profile brute force attacks on major corporations in the last few years. The most famous is the 2016 attack on Equifax, which compromised the personal information of more than 145 million Americans.

There are several tools available to you. In this article, we’re listing the top 8 tools for brute force attacks. 

Table of Contents

What Are Brute Force Attacks?

A brute force attack is a hacking method that works on trial and error to crack login credentials, passwords, and encryption keys. It’s a tactic to gain unauthorized access to individuals’ or organizations’ accounts, networks, and systems. These attacks often work by attempting thousands of unique combinations until they find one that works.

Once successful, attackers can enter the system as legitimate users and remain there until detected. They use this time to move laterally, gain knowledge about the system, and install back doors. Brute force attacks are not new. However, they are on the rise due to the increase in remote work. 

Best Tools for Brute Force Attacks

The hacking community has developed several tools and techniques to execute brute-force attacks. Here we will highlight popular tools used in different scenarios to perform such attacks to get desired results.

1. Gobuster

Gobuster is one of the most popular and well-known brute force tools available on the web. It’s important to note that Gobuster isn’t intended to be used as an automated password-cracking tool.  However, it is used for identifying servers that are vulnerable to brute-force attacks. These tools help ensure you know exactly where your company’s security loopholes exist and then work with your IT team or vendors to shore them up.

Features

  • Performs a brute force attack against an IP range
  • Checks for the presence of specific file types (e.g., PHP, CGI)
  • Checks for password hashes using md5 and bcrypt formats
  • Tests password strength and create lists of passwords
  • It can also be used to find weak passwords

If you’re looking for an easy way to break into a website or just want to see what kind of damage someone could do if they had access to your account, this tool is a good place to start!

2. Burp Suite

Burp Suite is an open-source tool for web application security assessment and penetration testing. It has a suite of tools for performing brute-force attacks, emulating user actions on web applications, and testing application security. These different tools make Burp Suite a complete set of information that can be used to test for vulnerabilities in web applications and identify ways to exploit them. 

Features

  • Ensure multi-layer security
  • Scans and audits of user-driven applications
  • Provides audit trails, vulnerability testing, and auto-fix tools 
  • Help you protect your web application from attacks

The aim of this tool is to enable you to monitor web attacks. So whenever any hacker tries to attempt a brute force attack, this tool immediately records malicious activity and, after scanning, prepares the right security plan for data protection.

3. Nmap

Nmap is a free and open-source security scanner for network discovery and security auditing. It has been used in manual and automated security testing to scan large networks. You can employ it to find open ports, perform banner grabbing, determine the operating system and version of a host, and a lot more things that matter for the security of your website or application.

Features

  • Determines what hosts are available on the network
  • Uses a variety of techniques to determine network security
  • Identifies if a host is up or down
  • Finds default passwords
  • Uses advanced techniques to detect open and closed ports
  • Allows you to scan your entire network in just one go

So whether you have to gather additional system information or dive deep into the security regulations of your website, this tool is considerable.

4. Wireshark

Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer that allows you to capture and decode packets on the wire and display them on a screen. It is best for brute-forcing password hashes because it can capture TCP/IP traffic in real-time. 

Also, it has a built-in scripting language that allows you to write scripts that automate tasks like capturing packets, filtering them, and displaying their contents.

Features

  • Captures all packets
  • Displays packet data in real-time
  • Supports various protocols (TCP, UDP, ICMP)
  • Decodes and interprets protocols
  • Generates and displays protocol data records

So if you are looking for a tool that identifies what type of traffic is being sent over the network, where it’s coming from, and even what application is sending the data, this is the right one for you!

5. gRPC Scanner

gRPC Scanner is a lightweight and powerful tool for scanning your gRPC services. It can be used to find issues in your code, such as authentication/authorization configuration, rate limits, service health checks, and more. Moreover, you can use it to scan for vulnerabilities in your gRPC services.  gRPC scanner helps you scan your service and list the vulnerabilities it detects.

Features

  • Provides detailed information about each request
  • It supports multiple languages (including Java, JavaScript, Python, and Ruby)
  • Scan your network for open ports
  • Gives a list of the most common errors and their causes

gRPC Scanner is a tool that helps you perform a number of network scans to look for misconfigurations on your system. If it finds one, it will notify you and allow you to resolve the issue.

6. Aircrack-ng

Aircrack-ng can be used to defend against brute force attacks. It works by simulating connections between the client and server and then uses this information to crack the password. Also, this tool works by intercepting network traffic and monitoring common passwords. If it encounters a connection with a password in the clear, it will attempt to crack it.

It has significant capabilities to discover the password hashes of wireless cards (and therefore the Wi-Fi passwords associated with them), which can then be cracked using a dictionary attack on the Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) PINs that have been exposed.

Features

  • Built-in wireless access point detector
  • Capture and replay all the packets on a network
  • Monitor traffic from a range of ports, including SYN, UDP, ICMP, and TCP
  • Password cracking with dictionary attack or brute force attack
  • WPA/WPA2 handshaking monitor
  • WPA Personal mode analysis
  • Wireless network monitor

It also has features that allow you to get around WPA/WPA2 protection, which means it can crack passwords if they’re only partially encrypted.

7. John the Ripper

John the Ripper is a free, open-source password security auditing and recovery tool. It is available on many platforms, including Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. This tool can be used to check passwords against dictionary attacks, brute force attacks—where you try every possible combination of characters—and information disclosure attacks. 

Features

  • Support Exhaustive cracker mode
  • Test very long passwords in a way that makes it difficult for attackers to guess
  • Dictionary attack mode
  • Brute Force Attack mode
  • Checks if your password is strong enough to protect your accounts
  • The tool is available to download for free

John the Ripper is specific for password protection cases and brings all possible tactics in place when it comes to security alerts. 

8. Wifite

Wifite helps you secure your Wi-Fi network and works by creating a virtual router that blocks all unauthenticated access to your Wi-Fi network. It does so without any noticeable impact on speed or performance. Furthermore, it works by blocking unauthorized access to your computer and encrypting all information in transit between them.

One most interesting fact about this tool is that it uses a dictionary of over 100,000 possible passwords, which it uses to create a “lock” for each user or device. If you try to log in using one of these possible passwords, Wifite will block your attempt and show you the message “you have been locked out.”

Features

  • Performs port scanning
  • Detects man-in-the-middle attacks
  • Keep an eye on logic bombs
  • Employ two-factor authentication
  • It lets you control your home network from anywhere
  • Blocks brute force attacks against your Wi-Fi network

Final Verdict

As the world of technology is growing, the tactics made by Brute Force Attackers have also been advanced which can put your website and application in serious trouble. Using the above-mentioned tools can establish your online presence of any risk as they have opened many ways for organizations to conduct their tasks without being worried about hacking interruption or data breach.

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