Cisco Releases Open Source Tool for Pen Testers

Cisco Systems has released an open source tool designed to make life easier for penetration testers.

The tool, known as Kvasir, the web applications was initially developed for the Cisco Systems Advanced Services Security Posture Assessment (SPA) team. Its goal is to improve the ability of pen testers to share and utilize vulnerability data collected by various tools, such as Metasploit Pro and Nmap Security Scanner.

“Disparate information sources such as vulnerability scanners, exploitation frameworks, and other tools are homogenized into a unified database structure,” blogged Kurt Grutzmacher, solutions architect with Cisco’s Security Practice Advanced Services team. “This allows security testers to accurately view the data and make good decisions on the next attack steps.”

“Multiple testers can work together on the same data allowing them to share important collected information,” he explained. “There’s nothing worse than seeing an account name pass by and finding out your co-worker cracked it two days ago but didn’t find anything “important” so it was never fully documented.”

Exploit frameworks such as Metasploit Pro and CANVAS as well as the Exploit Database archive from Offensive Security are mapped to vulnerability and CVE entries, Grutzmacher noted, which offers users a window into potential exploitation methods. CORE Impact’s list of exploits is being researched for inclusion, he added.

“Since the SPA team generally uses Rapid7′s Nexpose and Metasploit Pro Kvasir integrates the use of these tools via their API,” he blogged, adding that the importation of Nexpose site reports is automated. “We purposefully did not incorporate some features but may have future plans for others.”

“For Metasploit Pro results you must first generate an XML report but after that is done Kvasir will download and parse it automatically,” he continued. “Kvasir also supports the db_creds output and will automatically import pwdump and screenshots through the Metasploit Pro API.”

Other tools supported by Kvasir include: ShodanHQ, THC-Hydra, Foofus Medusa and John The Ripper.

The source code is available here.