Network Security Toolkit

Network Security Toolkit (NST) is a Linux-based Live CD that provides a set of open source computer security and networking tools to perform routine security and networking diagnostic and monitoring tasks. The distribution can be used as a network security analysis, validation and monitoring tool on servers hosting virtual machines. The majority of tools published in the article Top 100 security tools by Insecure.org are available in the toolkit. NST has package management capabilities similar to Fedora and maintains its own repository (32 bit / 64 bit) of additional packages.


Many tasks that can be performed within NST are available through a web interface called NST WUI. Among the tools that can be used through this interface are nmap with the vizualization tool ZenMap, ntop, a Network Interface Bandwidth Monitor, a Network Segment ARP Scanner, a session manager for VNC, a minicom-based terminal server, serial port monitoring, and WPA PSK management.

Other features include visualization of ntop, wireshark, traceroute, netflow and kismet data by geolocating the host addresses, IPv4 Address conversation, traceroute data and wireless access points and displaying them via Google Earth or a Mercator World Map bit image, a browser-based packet capture and protocol analysis system capable of monitoring up to four network interfaces using Wireshark, as well as a Snort-based intrusion detection system with a "collector" backend that stores incidents in a MySQL database. For web developers, there is also a JavaScript console with a built-in object library with functions that aid the development of dynamic web pages.