✅ Top Exploitation Tools for Red Teamers ✅
Red Teaming demands cutting-edge tools to simulate advanced threats and uncover vulnerabilities. Here are essential tools to elevate your engagements and strengthen defenses:
1. Cobalt Strike
- A full-featured platform for adversary simulations, offering everything from beaconing to post-exploitation. Customize it with Aggressor Scripts to adapt to any scenario.
2. Metasploit Framework
- An open-source tool that serves as a platform for developing, testing, & executing exploits.
- Includes 1000's of exploit modules for different vulnerabilities & facilitates payload generation, post-exploitation actions, & privilege escalation through meterpreter sessions.
3. Empire
- A post-exploitation framework that supports both PowerShell & Python agents, offering flexibility across Windows & Linux environments.
- Allows for remote execution of scripts, file management, keylogging, & other persistence mechanisms.
4. BloodHound
- Used for AD enumeration & exploitation. It helps visualize & analyze AD environments, identifying attack paths to escalate privileges.
- Leverages graph theory to map out relationships between users, computers, & groups to find the shortest paths to compromise high-value targets.
5. SilentTrinity
- C#/.NET post-exploitation tool for Red Teaming, bypassing PowerShell restrictions with in-memory payloads, lateral movement, and credential dumping.
6. SharpHound & CrackMapExec
- SharpHound is the data collection tool for BloodHound, used to enumerate the AD environment.
- CrackMapExec is a Swiss Army knife for pentesting networks, allowing for enumeration, credential validation, & exploitation.
7. Pupy
- A cross-platform (Windows, Linux, macOS, android) remote administration tool that focuses on stealthy post-exploitation.
8. Mimikatz
- A staple for credential dumping & Kerberos ticket extraction. Essential for lateral movement and persistence.
9. Nishang
- A PowerShell toolkit for offensive security, with scripts for exploitation, privilege escalation, persistence, & credential harvesting.
10. Sliver
- Open-source adversary emulation framework supporting multi-protocol C2, custom payloads, & multi-platform attacks for Red Team operations.
11. Covenant
- .NET-based C2 framework with in-memory task execution, web interface, and modules for post-exploitation to evade security controls.
12. Impacket
- A collection of Python classes for working with network protocols, useful for exploiting various SMB-related vulnerabilities.
- Commonly used tools include
psexec.py for remote code execution,
secretsdump.py for dumping credentials, &
wmiexec.py for executing cmd.
Best Practices for Using Exploitation Tools
Use in-memory execution & obfuscation for stealth.
Customize scripts to bypass security controls.
Maintain OpSec with encrypted communications & rotating C2.
Clean up artifacts to limit exposure.