I've been exploring various cybersecurity tools for a while now. Before starting my university, I attended a CISSP course in my gap year. Although university commitments limited my time, I still enjoy working in my home lab whenever I can. Here are some of the tools I’ve gained familiarity with along the way.
I proxy, fuzz, and tamper with requests to find auth bypasses, IDOR, SSRF, and injection bugs.
I usually have ZAP running in CI for quick DAST on every PR, helping catch common issues early.
I perform content discovery to find hidden routes, admin panels, and misconfigured resources in web apps (only under legal scope).
dirsearch complements ffuf in my workflow, especially when I want recursive directory scanning or better output formatting.
BeEF introduced me to the world of client-side attacks like XSS and insecure headers. It lets me hook browsers and demonstrate risks in a hands-on way.
I use Nmap for network reconnaissance—scanning ports, services, and OS info to understand the attack surface.
A personal favorite for rapid exploit development, payload testing, and post-exploitation in my controlled lab environments.
BloodHound maps out Active Directory attack paths, helping me analyze privilege escalation and lateral movement opportunities.
I use this tool when working with WPS-based wireless attacks. In my lab, I’ve used it to assess how poorly secured WPS setups can be brute-forced.
This cat performs offline password auditing by cracking hashes — just (wink!) from test labs or CTFs.
A flexible alternative for password hash cracking and auditing weaker encryption schemes.
I inspect packet captures to analyze suspicious traffic, extract credentials, and debug protocol behavior.
I'm still learning this one — exploring how to analyze RAM dumps, find hidden processes, and extract malware artifacts.
Autopsy makes disk forensics more approachable. I’ve used it to recover deleted files, reconstruct timelines, and examine browser history.