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Python tools for penetration testers

If you are involved in vulnerability research, reverse engineering or penetration testing, I suggest to try out the Python programming language. It has a rich set of useful libraries and programs. This page lists some of them.

Most of the listed tools are written in Python, others are just Python bindings for existing C libraries, i.e. they make those libraries easily usable from Python programs.

Some of the more aggressive tools (pentest frameworks, bluetooth smashers, web application vulnerability scanners, war-dialers, etc.) are left out, because the legal situation of these tools is still a bit unclear in Germany -- even after the decision of the highest court. This list is clearly meant to help whitehats, and for now I prefer to err on the safe side.

Network

• Scapy: send, sniff and dissect and forge network packets. Usable interactively or as a library
• pypcap, Pcapy and pylibpcap: several different Python bindings for libpcap
• libdnet: low-level networking routines, including interface lookup and Ethernet frame transmission
• dpkt: fast, simple packet creation/parsing, with definitions for the basic TCP/IP protocols
• Impacket: craft and decode network packets. Includes support for higher-level protocols such as NMB and SMB
• pynids: libnids wrapper offering sniffing, IP defragmentation, TCP stream reassembly and port scan detection
• Dirtbags py-pcap: read pcap files without libpcap
• flowgrep: grep through packet payloads using regular expressions
• httplib2: comprehensive HTTP client library that supports many features left out of other HTTP libraries

Debugging and reverse engineering

• Paimei: reverse engineering framework, includes PyDBG, PIDA, pGRAPH
• Immunity Debugger: scriptable GUI and command line debugger
• IDAPython: IDA Pro plugin that integrates the Python programming language, allowing scripts to run in IDA Pro
• PyEMU: fully scriptable IA-32 emulator, useful for malware analysis
• pefile: read and work with Portable Executable (aka PE) files
• pydasm: Python interface to the libdasm x86 disassembling library
• PyDbgEng: Python wrapper for the Microsoft Windows Debugging Engine
• uhooker: intercept calls to API calls inside DLLs, and also arbitrary addresses within the executable file in memory
• diStorm64: disassembler library for AMD64, licensed under the BSD license
• python-ptrace: debugger using ptrace (Linux, BSD and Darwin system call to trace processes) written in Python

Fuzzing

• Sulley: fuzzer development and fuzz testing framework consisting of multiple extensible components
• Peach Fuzzing Platform: extensible fuzzing framework for generation and mutation based fuzzing
• antiparser: fuzz testing and fault injection API
• TAOF, including ProxyFuzz, a man-in-the-middle non-deterministic network fuzzer
• untidy: general purpose XML fuzzer
• Powerfuzzer: highly automated and fully customizable web fuzzer (HTTP protocol based application fuzzer)
• FileP: file fuzzer. Generates mutated files from a list of source files and feeds them to an external program in batches
• SMUDGE
• Mistress: probe file formats on the fly and protocols with malformed data, based on pre-defined patterns
• Fuzzbox: multi-codec media fuzzer
• Forensic Fuzzing Tools: generate fuzzed files, fuzzed file systems, and file systems containing fuzzed files in order to test the robustness of forensics tools and examination systems
• Windows IPC Fuzzing Tools: tools used to fuzz applications that use Windows Interprocess Communication mechanisms
• WSBang: perform automated security testing of SOAP based web services
• Construct: library for parsing and building of data structures (binary or textual). Define your data structures in a declarative manner
• fuzzer.py (feliam): simple fuzzer by Felipe Andres anzano

Web

• ProxMon: processes proxy logs and reports discovered issues
• WSMap: find web service endpoints and discovery files
• Twill: browse the Web from a command-line interface. Supports automated Web testing
• Windmill: web testing tool designed to let you painlessly automate and debug your web application
• FunkLoad: functional and load web tester

Forensics

• Volatility: extract digital artifacts from volatile memory (RAM) samples
• SandMan: read the hibernation file, regardless of Windows version
• LibForensics: library for developing digital forensics applications
• TrIDLib, identify file types from their binary signatures. Now includes Python binding

Malware analysis

• pyew: command line hexadecimal editor and disassembler, mainly to analyze malware
• Didier Stevens' PDF tools: analyse, identify and create PDF files (includes PDFiD, pdf-parser and make-pdf and mPDF)
• Origapy: Python wrapper for the Origami Ruby module which sanitizes PDF files
• Exefilter: filter file formats in e-mails, web pages or files. Detects many common file formats and can remove active content
• pyClamAV: add virus detection capabilities to your Python software

Misc

• InlineEgg: toolbox of classes for writing small assembly programs in Python
• Exomind: framework for building decorated graphs and developing open-source intelligence modules and ideas, centered on social network services, search engines and instant messaging
• RevHosts: enumerate virtual hosts for a given IP address
• simplejson: JSON encoder/decoder, e.g. to use Google's AJAX API

Other useful libraries and tools

• IPython: enhanced interactive Python shell with many features for object introspection, system shell access, and its own special command system
• Beautiful Soup: HTML parser optimized for screen-scraping
• matplotlib: make 2D plots of arrays
• Mayavi: 3D scientific data visualization and plotting
• RTGraph3D: create dynamic graphs in 3D
• Twisted: event-driven networking engine
• Suds: lightweight SOAP client for consuming Web Services
• M2Crypto: most complete OpenSSL wrapper
• NetworkX: graph library (edges, nodes)
• pyparsing: general parsing module
• lxml: most feature-rich and easy-to-use library for working with XML and HTML in the Python language
• Pexpect: control and automate other programs, similar to Don Libes `Expect` system
• Sikuli, visual technology to search and automate GUIs using screenshots. Scriptable in Jython

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