Ask HN: Can you automate penetration testing?

2 points by mectors ↗ HN
Is it possible to automate penetration testing and not having to have humans doing it manually? If yes, how? If no, what parts can be and what cannot be automated?

1 comment

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What do you mean by manually? There are several tools used for penitration testing each with a specific purpose.

For example, if you wanted to access a secure wifi network you may use a particular tool but if you wanted to break a password you would use another.

Beyond tools there are also specific techniques used to penitrate SQL databases etc..

I purposely have been vague and not named the tools and techniques for doing this.

That being said, there is a certain live linux distribution that starts with K and ends with ALI which has alot of pentest tools pre installed and I see no reason why you couldn't write a Bash script to "automate" things.