Opensource Applications

Security is a critical aspect in any software that we craft. Ensuring network security for
software you carve can be easy with the wide variety of open source network security tools.
From message simulators to packet analyzers, this list of 10 best open source network security
tools familiarizes the best in industry tools to help create secure software.

John the Ripper is a fast password cracker, currently available for many flavors of Unix,
Windows, DOS, BeOS, and OpenVMS. Its primary purpose is to detect weak Unix passwords. Besides
several crypt(3) password hash types most commonly found on various Unix systems, supported out
of the box are Windows LM hashes, plus lots of other hashes and ciphers in the community-
enhanced version.

Tcpdump is the network sniffer we all used before (Wireshark) came on the scene, and many of us continue to use it frequently. It may not have the bells and whistles (such as a pretty GUI and parsing logic for hundreds of application protocols) that Wireshark has, but it does the job well and with less security risk. It also requires fewer system resources. While Tcpdump doesn t receive new features often, it is actively maintained to fix bugs and portability problems. It is great for tracking d

Netcat is a simple Unix utility which reads and writes data across network connections, using TCP or UDP protocol. It is designed to be a reliable “back-end” tool that can be used directly or easily driven by other programs and scripts.

BackTrack is a Linux-based penetration testing arsenal that aids security professionals in the ability to perform assessments in a purely native environment dedicated to hacking.