Top 10 Free Windows Network Security Tools

Here are my top ten Windows security tools.  There are so many more that could be included, but these are the ones I use most often.  These are tools you can use to help diagnose network problems, scan for vulnerabilities, and analyze your network.  These aren’t tools that will increase your security profile, like disk encryption or vpn utilities, but rather ones that you may use in troubleshooting or performing analysis. These are in no particular order, and many of these are available on other OSX and/or Linux.

1) NMAP - incredibly powerful command line utility. In addition to port scanning, it can perform OS detection and do all kinds of other great. Its great for troubleshooting network services availability.

2) Cain and Abel – Careful with this one. Password “recovery”, ARP poisoning, sniffing…

3) Nessus - #1 Vulnerability scanner. It will check for everything under the sun on your network. You’ll be surprised at what’s running out there.

4) BSA - Straight from MS.  Microsoft’s free security and vulnerability assessment scan tool

5) Wireshark - World-class packet sniffer. Enough said.

6) Netstat – command line for displaying network connections and other net-related info about your PC. Great quick way to figure out What’s running and who’s it talking to, and no installation required!

7) NetStumbler - This is great for doing wireless network assessments. Where are the dead spots? What AP’s are interfering?

9) TCPView - Great tool from SysInternals (MS). Like Netstat on steroids in a gui.

10) Snort - Open Source IDS (Intrusion Detection System) – very powerful, extensible, Lightweight, IDS.