Tool - Nessus

Ok. Here is another tool that the penetration community should already know very well. Nessus is basically a tool to scan and inform about vulnerabilities in open ports. It will report back to you about what it found and why some open ports may be a problem. (a lot more info than nmap) There is also a safe mode and a not-so-safe mode. The un-safe mode will try a larger variety of checks against the node including DoS. So, if you are using it against a work machine... do it after hours or create a clone and do it in a lab. If you were to run it against Windows 98, it would bring it down. ha (i've done it in a lab) ha

Tool - Brutus

This is a Windows tool similar to Hydra. Its simple with only one window. It won't do quite as much as Hydra will do (Hydra is available for Windows too). But, Brutus is still a nice tool. I'll have to check into it again but I am not so sure Hydra can go against web authentication (including forms). Brutus will go against web authentication and web forms.

Tool - Hydra / Hydra GTK

This is just a note I made.
Please visit the start of the mini-series here:
http://securitynotes.blogspot.com/2008/11/hydra-hydra-gtk-basic-cracking-hacking.html

Ok, so this is a tool thats WELL KNOWN by the penetration community (no, not a condom! ha). Hydra is a freaking fast tool that you can use to brute force, dictionary, etc. a target. Normal Hydra is used via the command line and Hydra GTK is a UI version. For learning how to use it I recommend the UI as it will get you going quickly. You will be loosing some CPU cycles to the GUI environment but I will leave it up to you to decide if really makes a difference. At the base of Hydra GTK is the command to run Hydra from the command line. So if you are using a password file against one username, it will display how to run what your running in the UI, from the CLI.

Here is the site:
http://www.thc.org/thc-hydra/