Cloud penetration testing involves systematically exploiting vulnerabilities, identified either through automated scans or manual assessments, to evaluate the potential damage that a data breach or hacking incident could cause. This practice helps both cloud providers and customers maintain a high level of security awareness and comprehension.
This article lists the Top 10 AWS Pentesting Tools in 2023. Read along!
Table of Contents
- What is Penetration Testing?
- What are AWS Pen testing Tools
- Does AWS Allow Pentesting?
- 10 Best AWS Pentesting Tools in 2023
- How do you choose the best AWS Pentesting Tool?
- Conclusion
What is Penetration Testing?
Penetration testing, also known as ethical hacking or security testing, is a proactive and authorized approach to assessing the security of a computer system, network, or application. It involves simulating real-world attacks by trained professionals to identify vulnerabilities and weaknesses that malicious actors could exploit. The goal of penetration testing is to evaluate the effectiveness of security measures, identify potential risks, and provide recommendations for strengthening the overall security posture of the system being tested.
What are AWS Pen testing Tools
AWS pentesting tools are customized security solutions designed to assess AWS network performance and ensure fine-grained monitoring. They are used to conduct cloud-based vulnerability assessments, penetration tests, and produce insights about an organization’s overall AWS security posture.
AWS pentesting tools also check for flaws in the AWS infrastructure, performs agentless security scanning, and can conduct cloud-based audits
Does AWS Allow Pentesting?
Customers utilizing AWS services can conduct security assessments and penetration tests on their AWS infrastructure for the specific services mentioned in the following section without needing prior approval. AWS conducts routine security checks as part of its standard procedures and acknowledges the valuable contributions made by customers in enhancing overall security. AWS provides specific channels through which customers can report identified vulnerabilities that may require system adjustments.
Customers are granted permission to conduct penetration testing on the following services:
- Amazon EC2 instances, NAT Gateways, and Elastic Load Balancers
- Amazon API Gateways
- Amazon Aurora
- AWS Lambda and Lambda Edge functions
- Amazon Lightsail resources
- Amazon Elastic Beanstalk environments
- Amazon RDS
- Amazon CloudFront
10 Best AWS Pentesting Tools in 2023
Here is the list of the top 10 AWS Pentesting Tools:
#1. PingSafe
PingSafe is a comprehensive tool for cloud security that protects companies of all sizes and sectors. It can aid in eliminating all risks and problems, both known and unknown. It is an established platform that is aware of the attack plan.
Features:
- In the cloud, configuration errors are automatically addressed and repaired. Misconfigurations across resources, lateral movement pathways, and impact radius are displayed in graphs.
- Monitoring continuous security posture of new or current cloud services, focusing on security concerns and recommended practices, and notifying of security defaults.
- Infrastructure as a Code: Comparing IaC configuration and implementation to other standards like CIS benchmark and PCI-DSS. To prevent merge and pull requests with hardcoded secrets, support for CI/CD integration can be employed.
- Find the cloud resources/assets with known CVEs (Intelligence from 10 or more sources with thorough coverage) to handle vulnerabilities.
- Threat Watch: A dashboard for monitoring any problems with the zero-day vulnerabilities in your environment.
- Bill of materials (BOM) reporting for agentless applications and security vulnerability testing for virtual machine snapshots.
PingSafe is not a cloud pen-testing tool. If you are looking for a complete cloud security tool, Pingsafe is an apt choice. The starting price is USD 2000 per month.
#2. Intruder
Intruder’s cloud-based application was created to assist enterprises in automatically running security scans to find and address potential risks. Thanks to actionable analytics, professionals can proactively monitor the system, get automated alerts about fresh vulnerabilities, and see how exposed they are to threats.
Features:
- The service provides scanning for AWS, GCP, and Azure connections, encompassing external and network scanning.
- It offers web application testing capabilities.
- The service provides an option to ensure ongoing security assessments.
- A dedicated team of penetration testers for manual testing conducted by experienced professionals.
Contact the Intruder team for pricing details.
#3. Invicti
Enterprise enterprises may secure thousands of websites using the automated application security testing tool Invicti, which significantly lowers the attack risk. Organizations with complex infrastructures may confidently automate their online security thanks to Invicti’s cutting-edge DAST + IAST scanning capabilities.
Features:
- The tool can be hosted on AWS.
- You can conduct individual tests or comprehensively scan the target system.
- It can run as a continuous testing tool for ongoing security assessments.
You can get a quote for pricing by contacting the Invicti team.
#4. Acunetix
Acunetix is an automated tool for assessing the security of web applications, and auditing your web apps for exploitable flaws like SQL Injection and Cross-Site Scripting.
Features:
- Acunetix covers both external and internal assessments.
- It also includes the capability to test AWS WAF (Web Application Firewall) configurations.
- It also integrates with OpenVAS.
You can get a quote for pricing by contacting the Acunetix team.
#5. Awspx
A graph-based application called awspx is used to visualize AWS’s efficient access and resource interactions. It resolves policy information to assess which activities affect which resources and how these actions might be coupled to create attack routes.
Features:
- Access rights are visually depicted through a graphical representation
- It is facilitated by a GUI front end.
- Used to strengthen the security and resilience of a system.
#6. Sophos
For network security and unified threat management, Sophos is a cybersecurity system that provides detection and response, firewall, cloud, and managed service solutions.
Features:
- Provides powerful, real-time protection against the most recent malware, viruses, ransomware, malicious software, hacking attempts, and more, going well beyond typical antivirus.
- Additionally, it offers choices for parental web filtering and remote antivirus administration for as many as ten devices.
Contact the Sophos team to get pricing details.
#7. Pacu
The next tool in the list of AWS Pentesting Tools is Pacu. For offensive security testing against cloud infrastructures, Pacu is an open-source AWS exploitation framework. Through the use of modules, Pacu developed and maintained by Rhino Security Labs, enables penetration testers to exploit configuration weaknesses in an AWS account easily.
Features:
- Exploitation Modules: These modules cover privilege escalation, credential theft, data exfiltration, persistence mechanisms, and more.
- Lateral Movement: Pacu includes functionality for performing lateral movement within an AWS environment. This enables testers to traverse across different accounts and services, simulating an attacker’s actions to escalate privileges and gain unauthorized access.
- Security Assessment: Pacu assists in identifying security weaknesses and misconfigurations within AWS accounts.
Contact the Pacu team for pricing details.
#8. Nmap
Nmap, an open-source vulnerability scanner, proves invaluable for cloud network discovery, management, and monitoring. While primarily tailored for scanning large cloud networks, it remains equally effective for individual networks.
Features:
- Comprehensive network scanning.
- Identification of open ports and services.
- OS detection and version detection.
- Scriptable interaction with the target.
- Support for a wide range of operating systems.
- Ability to scan large networks efficiently and accurately.
You can contact Nmap for pricing details.
#9. Scout Suite
The next tool in the list of AWS Pentesting Tools is Scout Suite. This cloud penetration testing tool is an open-source solution designed to perform security testing on various cloud platforms.
Features:
- Multi-cloud support, allowing audits across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
- It performs comprehensive security audits covering identity and access management, network security, storage, databases, and compliance.
- With automated assessment capabilities, it scans cloud resources for security vulnerabilities and misconfigurations.
- Scout Suite generates detailed reports, providing actionable insights into identified risks and compliance issues.
- It supports continuous monitoring through scheduled or on-demand assessments.
You can contact Scout Suite for pricing details.
#10. AWS Inspector
The last tool in the list of AWS Pentesting Tools is AWS Inspector. This vulnerability management service automatically scans AWS workloads to identify vulnerabilities and unintentional exposures continuously. Enabling AWS Inspector across all your AWS accounts is a simple process.
Features:
- Automated vulnerability scanning of EC2 instances.
- Detection of common security issues, misconfigurations, and assessments for compliance with industry best practices.
- Providing detailed insights into potential vulnerabilities in AWS resources.
Contact AWS Inspector to get a pricing quote.
How do you choose the best AWS Pentesting Tool?
While choosing AWS Pentesting tools, you have to consider the following points:
- Consider the AWS pentesting tools or the company’s track record and experience when evaluating reputation and experience. Find the top AWS penetration testing tools or businesses with a track record of offering trustworthy and effective security solutions.
- Features to look for in these AWS pentesting tools include automation, compliance checks, API testing, vulnerability scanning, and security configuration evaluations. Consider the possibilities for integration, scalability, reporting, and usability.
- Customer service: Observe how the community promotes and advances the tools. AWS testing solutions with a large user base, regular upgrades, and continuing developer support are the best.
- User Interface: Using an intuitive and user-friendly interface can make Your penetration testing efforts much more successful and efficient. The user interface (UI) should be tidy, well-made, and uncomplicated.
- AWS penetration testing operations, tests, and critical data should all be visible in one intuitive dashboard. Using a simple dashboard, you may monitor vulnerabilities and progress and identify trends or patterns.
Conclusion
Cloud computing has revolutionized the business landscape, offering convenience and storage capabilities. However, ensuring the security of customer data in the cloud has become crucial, considering the potential risks of hacking.
This article provides a detailed overview of the top 10 AWS Pentesting Tools, exploring their features, pros, and cons. Additionally, it discusses the essential attributes of a reputable cloud security company and factors to consider when making the right choice. By delving into these aspects, readers can gain valuable insights into safeguarding their data in the cloud.
