Tools

The Social Engineering Toolkit (SET) is one of the most important tools in a red teamer’s arsenal — and also one of the most misunderstood. Built specifically for social engineering attacks, it’s not just a script kiddie toy. Used properly, SET simulates the exact attack chains that real threat actors use to compromise organizations. This guide covers everything: installation, attack modules, credential harvesting, spear phishing campaigns, website cloning, and the OPSEC considerations that separate a successful engagement from a burned infrastructure. ...

Cobalt Strike costs over $5,000 per year per operator. For most red teamers — especially independent consultants, students, or teams running lean — that’s a non-starter. And even if you can afford it, Cobalt Strike’s signatures are burned into every major EDR’s detection logic after a decade of real-world adversary use. The question isn’t whether alternatives exist. They do. The question is which one fits your operation, skill level, and threat model. ...

Havoc is an open-source command-and-control framework that’s quickly become the go-to alternative to Cobalt Strike for red teamers who can’t justify the $5,000/seat price tag. It’s actively developed, has solid evasion capabilities, and the implant — called Demon — supports most of what you need for a real engagement. This guide walks you through everything: installation, listener setup, Demon payload generation, post-exploitation, and evasion basics. What Is Havoc C2? Havoc is a modern C2 framework built by HavocFramework . The architecture follows the standard red team playbook: ...

Sliver is an open-source C2 framework built by BishopFox. It was designed to replace Cobalt Strike for red teams who can’t or won’t pay $5,000+ per year. Since its release, it’s become one of the most serious alternatives — used by actual red teams, not just CTF players. This guide covers everything: installation, server setup, operator sessions, generating implants, running post-exploitation, and avoiding the common mistakes that get you caught. ...

Command-and-control frameworks are the backbone of every red team operation. Once you have a foothold, C2 is what keeps you in — and what determines whether you get caught. The market shifted hard in the last few years. Cobalt Strike’s $5,000/year price tag pushed teams toward open-source alternatives, and those alternatives caught up fast. Sliver and Havoc aren’t budget substitutes anymore — they’re legitimate tools with their own advantages. This guide breaks down all three: what they do well, where they fall short, and how to decide which one belongs in your toolkit. ...

CrackMapExec is dead. Long live NetExec. If you’ve been in offensive security for more than a few years, CrackMapExec (CME) was probably one of the first tools you learned. It became the go-to for Active Directory enumeration, credential testing, and lateral movement — packed into a single framework with clean output and a protocol-agnostic design. In 2023, the original author archived the project. The community forked it and kept building under a new name: NetExec (nxc). Same DNA, actively maintained, and compatible with everything CME could do. ...

Bottom line: Cloud pentesting without the right toolchain is slow and error-prone. Pacu owns AWS post-exploitation, ScoutSuite handles multi-cloud audits, Prowler covers compliance and misconfiguration hunting, and CloudMapper visualizes what everything connects to. You need all of them. Why Cloud Pentesting Tools Matter Cloud infrastructure is not a server you can Nmap. The attack surface is IAM policies, S3 bucket permissions, Lambda function roles, EC2 metadata endpoints, VPC peering configurations, and a thousand other abstractions that have no equivalent in traditional on-prem pentesting. ...

Bottom line: HTB Starting Point is the best structured on-ramp into hands-on hacking that exists right now. Free, beginner-friendly, and connected to the real HTB ecosystem — it’s where you should start before touching anything else on the platform. What Is HTB Starting Point? Hack The Box is known for being notoriously difficult. Machines go live, the community races to root them, and beginners often feel left behind staring at a VPN config and an empty nmap scan, wondering what they’re doing wrong. ...

Bottom line: TryHackMe’s Pre-Security and SOC Level 1 paths are the best entry points in the industry right now. The Jr Penetration Tester path is solid but shows its age. Skip the CompTIA-aligned paths unless you’re studying for the cert specifically. Why Learning Path Choice Matters TryHackMe has over 20 learning paths, and the quality gap between them is significant. The best paths are structured like a curriculum, with each room building on the last. The weakest are loosely coupled topic collections dressed up as “paths” that leave gaps you’ll only discover when you try to apply the knowledge. ...

Bottom line: If you’re doing professional web app pentests or bug bounty hunting seriously, Burp Suite Pro pays for itself after one engagement. If you’re learning or doing CTFs, Community Edition is genuinely sufficient — for now. What Is Burp Suite? Burp Suite is PortSwigger’s web application security testing platform. It’s been the industry standard for web app pentesting for over a decade, and for good reason — it intercepts, manipulates, and replays HTTP/S traffic with surgical precision. Whether you’re hunting for SQLi, IDOR, XSS, or chaining together complex multi-step attack sequences, Burp is the tool you’ll reach for first. ...