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Security Toolkit — Full Archive

Identity & Access

Keycloak
Open source IdP handling OIDC, SAML, and preview SCIM provisioning, with WebAuthn and MFA policies configured through its admin console. Spin it up with `docker run quay.io/keycloak/keycloak` or a Helm chart — it's the default choice most teams reach for before evaluating anything commercial. Release 26.7.2 shipped August 19, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0); Red Hat sells support separately.
OpenBao
When HashiCorp moved Vault to the Business Source License in 2023, this fork picked up the MPL-2.0 codebase and kept building. v2.6.2 landed August 18, 2026, and a February 2026 release added namespaces and HA read scaling that used to be Vault Enterprise-only. It handles secrets, certificates, and encryption keys, and now sits under Linux Foundation governance. Run it via `docker run openbao/openbao` or a Helm chart. **Pricing:** free, open source (MPL-2.0).
SimpleWebAuthn
A TypeScript library pair, `@simplewebauthn/server` and `/browser`, that implements passkey registration and authentication so you don't have to read the WebAuthn spec yourself. It's become the standard choice for Node and browser-based passkey flows; `npm install @simplewebauthn/server` gets you started. **Pricing:** free, open source (MIT).
Authentik
An open-source identity provider covering OAuth2/OIDC, SAML, LDAP, and RADIUS, with SCIM provisioning and MFA enforced through configurable auth-flow policies rather than a fixed login screen. Its "outposts" feature drops a reverse proxy in front of legacy apps that can't speak OIDC natively, so they get SSO without a rewrite. Release 2026.8.0 (August 18, 2026) followed the project earning official OpenID certification. Run it with `docker compose up` or a Helm chart. **Pricing:** free, open source (MIT core); a separate Enterprise license covers advanced features, and CC BY-SA 4.0 covers the docs.
OpenFGA
A relationship-based authorization engine implementing Google's Zanzibar model: define an authorization model plus relationship tuples, then query Check, Expand, or ListObjects over HTTP or gRPC to get a permission decision. It's the open engine behind Auth0 FGA and now a CNCF incubating project in its own right, useful when role-based access control stops scaling. `docker run openfga/openfga run` or `brew install openfga` gets a local instance running. v1.19.0 shipped August 25, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0).
Hanko
A passkey-first authentication server with embeddable web components for the login UI, handling WebAuthn registration, MFA, social login, and SAML SSO without a password field in sight. v3, subtitled "Multitenancy," shipped July 27, 2026 and rebuilt the backend to serve multiple tenants natively, a shift from the single-tenant design of v2. Try the Docker Compose quickstart, or pull in `hanko-elements` with `npm install`. **Pricing:** free, open source (MIT for the frontend SDKs, AGPL-3.0 for the backend); a commercial license is available for organizations that need to avoid AGPL's copyleft terms.
Authelia
Authelia sits in front of Traefik, Caddy, nginx or HAProxy as a forward-auth portal and makes every request prove itself before it reaches the app behind it. You point your proxy at it, define per-domain access rules, and get TOTP, WebAuthn passkeys and Duo push on top of an LDAP or flat-file user store; it is also an OpenID-certified OIDC provider. This is the reference choice for homelab and small-team SSO, and v4.39.20 in May 2026 was a security release worth patching to. **Pricing:** free and open source (Apache-2.0).
Kanidm
Kanidm is a single Rust binary that does OAuth2/OIDC, attested passkeys, a read-only LDAPS gateway, RADIUS and TPM-backed offline Linux login, so you are not stitching four services together to get an identity platform. Pull `kanidm/server:latest`, drop a TLS cert into the volume, and follow the book; TLS is mandatory, which tells you the project's priorities. v1.12.0 landed 2026-11-01 with self-service signup, AES-256-GCM token encryption and documented key rotation. **Pricing:** free and open source (MPL-2.0).
Warpgate
Warpgate is a bastion for SSH, HTTPS, Kubernetes, MySQL, PostgreSQL, RDP and VNC that needs no client agent and records every session for replay. Run `ghcr.io/warp-tech/warpgate setup`, assign targets per user, and front them with TOTP and OIDC SSO plus in-browser terminals. The October 2026 line added Vault and OpenBao secret backends that fetch target credentials at connect time and issue short-lived signed certificates; v0.30.4 on 2026-11-03 is a security release fixing a high-severity SSRF, so anyone older should move. **Pricing:** free and open source (Apache-2.0).
Teleport
Teleport issues short-lived certificates for SSH, Kubernetes, databases, and cloud consoles instead of handing out static credentials, with session recording and just-in-time privilege elevation built in rather than bolted on. Install it with the goteleport.com script or a Docker image, then route infrastructure access through the Teleport Proxy. It's the reference implementation for infrastructure PAM at this point, with nearly 28,000 commits behind it. **Pricing:** free and open source (AGPL-3.0) if you build from source; compiled binaries and container images moved to a commercial license starting with v16.
HashiCorp Vault
Vault centralizes secrets management — dynamic credentials, encryption as a service, PKI issuance, and an audit trail of who touched what. `docker run hashicorp/vault server -dev` gets a sandbox running in seconds; production deployments pull a binary from releases.hashicorp.com. It's the tool OpenBao forked from once Vault moved off a fully open license, and most teams still reach for it first. **Pricing:** source-available under the Business Source License 1.1, converting to MPL-2.0 four years after each release — free to run, but you can't resell it as a competing hosted service.
Cerbos
Cerbos pulls authorization out of application code and into YAML policies that a sidecar or standalone service evaluates per request, which matters as much for AI agents checking tool permissions as for the web apps this pattern was built for. `docker run cerbos/cerbos:latest` gets a decision point running immediately, with SDKs for eight languages and a Helm chart for production. v0.57.0 shipped October 23, 2026, and releases land roughly weekly. **Pricing:** the policy decision point is Apache 2.0; Cerbos Hub adds paid management and audit tooling on top.
Pocket ID
Pocket ID is a self-hosted OIDC provider that drops passwords entirely — users sign in with a passkey, full stop. A `docker-compose.yml` from the repo gets an instance running against your own apps within minutes. It trades breadth for a small footprint next to something like Keycloak, and 9,800+ stars suggest plenty of people are fine with that trade. v2.19.1 landed October 22, 2026. **Pricing:** free and open source, BSD-2-Clause.
Zitadel
Self-host Zitadel with Docker Compose or a Helm chart, or use the free cloud tier capped at 100 daily active users. One Go binary handles SSO, OIDC, SAML, WebAuthn passkeys, MFA, and SCIM provisioning, with multi-tenancy designed in from day one instead of retrofitted later. The core is AGPL-3.0; scaling self-hosted usage past the community tier needs a commercial license. **Pricing:** free, open source (AGPL-3.0); cloud free tier to 100 DAU, Pro from $100/month, enterprise self-host under a commercial license.
SpiceDB
SpiceDB implements the relationship-based authorization model Google described in its Zanzibar paper: define a schema and a set of relationship tuples, then ask Check, Expand, or ListObjects over gRPC or HTTP to get a permission decision. It's what Authzed built its own hosted product on top of, useful once role-based access control stops scaling to the permission graph you actually have. `docker run authzed/spicedb serve` gets a local instance running. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0).
Infisical
Infisical started as a secrets manager and has grown a privileged-access-management layer on top: policy-gated access to infrastructure plus its own certificate authority for issuing short-lived certs, with near-daily patch releases through September 2026. `docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up` self-hosts the whole stack, or sign up for the free cloud tier. **Pricing:** free, open source core (MIT); PAM and compliance features live in a separately licensed enterprise module.

Offensive & Recon

Metasploit Framework
Twenty-three years in, this is still the reference exploitation and post-exploitation framework: a module library, a console, and an RPC API for chaining payloads together. Install via `msfinstall` or apt, then run `msfconsole`. v6.5 added 422 modules over the past two years. **Pricing:** free, open source (3-clause BSD).
BloodHound Community Edition
Maps Active Directory and Azure attack paths as a graph, so you can see which low-privilege account sits three hops from Domain Admin instead of guessing. Feed it data with the SharpHound or AzureHound collectors, then explore relationships in the CE web UI, backed by Neo4j and Postgres. v9.6.0 shipped August 18, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0); SpecterOps sells a separate commercial Enterprise SaaS.
Sliver
A Golang command-and-control framework built for red-team exercises, supporting mTLS, WireGuard, HTTP(S), and DNS transports for implant traffic. Run the server binary and generate implants through the CLI client. Bishop Fox keeps it actively maintained even though the last tagged release, v1.7.3, dates to February 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (GPL-3.0).
NetExec
The CrackMapExec successor for enumerating and testing authentication across SMB, WinRM, RDP, LDAP, and MSSQL. `pipx install netexec` or pull the Docker image, then point `nxc` at your scoped protocol and hosts. Commit activity has stayed constant through August 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (BSD-2-Clause).
Nuclei
A template-driven vulnerability scanner from ProjectDiscovery: point it at a target and it runs thousands of community-maintained YAML templates checking for CVEs, exposed admin panels, misconfigurations, and issues across web apps, APIs, DNS, and cloud configs. The template format is what makes it stick — writing a new check doesn't require touching Go code. `go install github.com/projectdiscovery/nuclei/v3/cmd/nuclei@latest`, or grab the Docker image. v3.11.1 shipped August 8, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (MIT); ProjectDiscovery also sells a hosted cloud tier for teams that want scheduled scanning without managing infrastructure.
Apache Caldera
An ATT&CK-mapped adversary emulation platform: deploy agents to endpoints, then run automated "abilities" that chain together real-world attacker techniques so blue teams get something realistic to detect against. MITRE built it over the past decade, then donated it to the Apache Software Foundation Incubator on May 20, 2026, moving governance from `mitre/caldera` to `apache/caldera` under vendor-neutral oversight. `git clone --recursive`, `pip install -r requirements.txt`, `python3 server.py --insecure --build`. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0).
Ligolo-ng
A tunneling and pivoting tool that builds a userland network stack over a reverse TCP or TLS connection, letting a tester route traffic into a segmented network without setting up a SOCKS proxy chain. Download prebuilt binaries from the GitHub releases page, then run the `proxy` relay on your attack box and the `agent` implant on the pivot host. v0.9.1 (August 11, 2026) added a multiplayer web interface for teams running an engagement together. **Pricing:** free, open source (GPL-3.0).
ffuf
ffuf is the Go web fuzzer most testers reach for first: fast, scriptable, and happy to brute directories, virtual hosts, parameters or POST bodies from a wordlist against a target you are authorized to probe. `go install github.com/ffuf/ffuf/v2@latest` and you are fuzzing in one command, with matchers and filters to cut the noise down to real findings. It stays the default because it does one job at speed and composes cleanly into larger recon chains. **Pricing:** free and open source (MIT).
Certipy
Certipy enumerates and abuses Active Directory Certificate Services, the misconfiguration class that quietly hands out domain escalation in a lot of enterprise AD. `pip install certipy-ad`, point it at a domain you are engaged to test, and it finds vulnerable certificate templates and the paths they open. It is the established pick for AD CS work and was last updated 2026-07-30. **Pricing:** free and open source (MIT).
PentAGI
PentAGI is a self-hosted multi-agent system that plans and runs pentest tasks inside a disposable Kali container, with a web UI, a GraphQL and REST API, Langfuse tracing and a choice of 13 model providers. Copy the example environment file and `docker compose up`. v2.2.0 on 2026-10-05 rebuilt the sandbox to close CVE-2026-14784, which exposed the host Docker socket to every worker when the shipped defaults were left in place, so run 2.2.0 or later and keep `DOCKER_INSIDE=false`. **Pricing:** free and open source (MIT); a free enterprise-edition key unlocks extra features.
Caido
Caido is a Rust-backed intercepting proxy for web app testing — capture traffic, replay and tamper with requests, chain repetitive steps into automation workflows. It ships as a desktop app for Windows, macOS, and Linux, and now comes bundled in Kali. The free Basic tier caps you at two projects and one active session; paid tiers unlock unlimited projects and an AI assistant. **Pricing:** freemium — free Basic tier, paid Individual/Team/Enterprise tiers, a free one-year plan for students and teachers.
AdaptixC2
AdaptixC2 is a modular command-and-control framework for red-team engagements, pairing a Go server with a cross-platform Qt client, pluggable listeners and agents, and a scripting engine for automating post-exploitation steps. Build it with the repo's install script or docker-compose; the README states plainly that it's for authorized testing only. It's newer than Sliver or Mythic but shipping fast, past 780 commits already. **Pricing:** free and open source, GPL-3.0.
CloudFox
Bishop Fox built CloudFox to answer "what can I actually reach from here?" during a cloud pentest — it enumerates AWS, Azure, and GCP resources and surfaces privilege-escalation paths, exposed secrets, and network misconfigurations, roughly PowerView for the cloud. `go install github.com/BishopFox/cloudfox@latest`, or grab a binary from Releases. It's the established pick in this niche and still gets patched regularly. **Pricing:** free and open source, MIT.
Mythic
Payload agents and network transports live in separate repos from Mythic's core, pulled in through `mythic-cli` rather than bundled together, which is what's let this collaborative red-team C2 framework keep absorbing new agent types since 2018 without the core ever needing a rewrite. Stand up the server with `sudo make && sudo ./mythic-cli start`. **Pricing:** free, open source (BSD-3-Clause).
Impacket
Most Active Directory assessment tooling is quietly built on Impacket: a Python library implementing SMB, MSRPC, Kerberos, LDAP, and MSSQL/TDS at a low level, shipped with example scripts like secretsdump.py and psexec.py for authorized post-exploitation work. `pip install impacket` gets the library and scripts; development stayed active through September 2026 even though the last tagged release is older. **Pricing:** free (modified Apache Software License; SMBv1/NetBIOS components carry pysmb's original license terms).
subfinder
Unlike active scanners, subfinder only queries external OSINT sources for a domain's subdomains, which keeps it the enumeration step teams chain into httpx and naabu for the rest of a recon pipeline against infrastructure they're authorized to map. `go install -v github.com/projectdiscovery/subfinder/v2/cmd/subfinder@latest`; full coverage needs optional API keys for some sources. **Pricing:** free, open source (MIT).
Chisel
Version 1.12.0, shipped August 29, 2026, hardened Chisel's auth-string and fingerprint validation and added graceful shutdown on SIGTERM after three release candidates. The tool itself tunnels TCP and UDP over HTTP secured by SSH in a single static binary, the standard way to pivot into a segmented network without setting up a full SOCKS proxy chain. Grab a prebuilt binary from the releases page; upgraders from 1.11.x need to check the SOCKS5 auth and fingerprint format changes. **Pricing:** free, open source (MIT).

Defensive & Detection

Wazuh
A SIEM and XDR platform in one: log analysis, file integrity monitoring, vulnerability detection, and an endpoint agent, with nothing held back behind a paid tier. Start with the docker-compose quickstart or the official installer, then roll out agents via package or MSI. v4.14.7 shipped July 30, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (GPLv2); Wazuh Inc. sells optional cloud hosting and support.
Sigma (SigmaHQ)
The generic detection-rule format most SIEMs can consume one way or another. Write once, then convert with `pySigma` or `sigma-cli` into queries for Splunk, Elastic, Sentinel, or Wazuh. The July 9, 2026 release added coverage for CVE-2026-41089 alongside 20 new rules and 70 updates. **Pricing:** free; rules ship under the Detection Rule License 1.1, which requires attribution on reproduction rather than a standard MIT/Apache grant.
Velociraptor
Endpoint monitoring and DFIR built on its own query language, VQL, for fleet-wide artifact collection when you need to hunt across hundreds of machines at once. Deploy the server binary, then push the client via MSI, deb, or exe. v0.77.2 landed August 10, 2026 with a CVE fix. Rapid7 acquired the project in 2021 but kept it under AGPL. **Pricing:** free, open source (AGPL-3.0-or-later).
T-Pot
Bundles more than 20 honeypots, including LLM-based ones like Beelzebub and Galah, with an Elastic Stack front end so you're not standing up each sensor separately. The installer targets a dedicated Linux host, or you can run the Docker Compose stack. Deutsche Telekom Security's team was still committing fixes as of August 25, 2026, even though the last tagged release predates that. **Pricing:** free, open source (GPL-3.0).
Suricata
A network intrusion detection and prevention engine that inspects traffic against Snort-compatible rules, extracts files in transit, and logs structured protocol data to `eve.json` for downstream analysis. It's the reference open-source NIDS most SOCs already run somewhere in their stack. Install via your distro's package manager, then pull current rules with `suricata-update`. Release `suricata-8.0.6` shipped July 7, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (GPL-2.0); nonprofit maintainer OISF and third parties sell training and premium rule feeds separately.
YARA-X
A ground-up Rust rewrite of the classic YARA pattern-matching engine used to fingerprint malware families from file content. VirusTotal built it for memory safety and speed, and now runs it in production scanning billions of files a day — existing YARA rule syntax carries over, so it's a drop-in upgrade path rather than a new language to learn. Install via `cargo install`, a prebuilt CLI binary, or Python/Go/WASM bindings. v1.20.0 shipped August 24, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (BSD-3-Clause).
CrowdSec
Analyzes logs and HTTP requests locally to spot attack patterns, then shares and consumes anonymized threat intelligence across its user base so a scan pattern seen on one server can get blocked on thousands of others within hours. Enforcement happens through pluggable "bouncers" for nginx, iptables, and other chokepoints, plus an optional WAF layer. `curl -s https://install.crowdsec.net | sudo sh`, or run it via Docker or Kubernetes. v1.7.8 shipped May 11, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source engine (MIT); paid Console and premium blocklist tiers sit on top for teams that want the hosted dashboard.
DFIR-IRIS
A web-based case management platform for incident response teams: track IOCs, build timelines, log evidence, and assign tasks from a shared workspace instead of a spreadsheet passed around over email. It's become the go-to free option since TheHive, long the default here, moved to a commercial-only model and pulled its public repos. `git clone`, check out a tagged release, copy the env template, and `docker compose up` brings up the app, database, queue, and worker together. v2.4.29 shipped August 10, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (LGPL-3.0).
Security Onion
Security Onion bundles Suricata, Zeek and the Elastic stack behind one analyst UI for network monitoring, log management and case work, as a single sensor or a distributed grid. Download the signed ISO and run the installer. The 3.x line is a rebuild: the 2.4 branch reached end of life on 2026-10-01, full-packet capture moved to Suricata, and 3.4.0 on 2026-11-02 added initial event correlation. Read the licence before you build a service on it. **Pricing:** free, source-available (Elastic License 2.0, no hosted/managed-service use); paid "Pro" add-ons.
Malcolm
Malcolm, from CISA and Idaho National Lab, ingests PCAP, Zeek logs and Suricata alerts, enriches them, and indexes everything in OpenSearch with an Arkime session viewer, dashboards, file carving and NetBox asset inventory. It leans toward ICS and OT networks, with industrial protocol parsers most stacks skip. Deploy from the installer ISO or clone and run the setup scripts. Releases are monthly; v26.10.0 on 2026-10-29 moved to Zeek 9.0.1 and several of this year's updates fixed holes in Malcolm itself, so keep it patched. **Pricing:** free and open source (Apache-2.0).
Tracecat
Tracecat is an open-source alternative to Tines and Splunk SOAR: response workflows and AI agents wired over your SIEM, EDR and ticketing tools, with case management and tables built in. Grab the release bundle and `docker compose up`. It hit 1.0 GA on 2026-09-16 after a long beta, rebuilt on a pure Temporal engine, and the 1.x line added passkey sign-in, AES-256-GCM database encryption and an nsjail sandbox executor. **Pricing:** free Open Source edition (AGPL-3.0); Helm, SCIM and air-gap are paid-tier only.
Hayabusa
Hayabusa turns Windows Event Logs into a readable hunting timeline fast, running 4,000+ community Sigma rules alongside roughly 170 of its own detections against EVTX files. Grab a signed binary from Releases and point it at a log export — no server required. The tool itself is AGPLv3, but the bundled rule set ships under a separate Detection Rule License that's worth reading before redistribution. **Pricing:** free and open source (AGPL-3.0 for the tool; rules under DRL 1.1).
Timesketch
Timesketch is Google's collaborative timeline platform for incident response — upload a Plaso supertimeline or a CSV, then search, annotate, and let built-in analyzers flag lateral movement or credential access across a shared case. The install guide walks through a Docker setup, and multiple analysts can work the same timeline simultaneously. It tagged release 20261014 this month. **Pricing:** free and open source, Apache-2.0.
Beelzebub
Beelzebub swaps canned honeypot responses for an LLM that improvises plausible system output across SSH, HTTP, TCP, and Telnet traps — plus an MCP honeypot built to catch prompt-injection attempts aimed at agents rather than humans. YAML defines each trap; `./install.sh --docker` gets it running. The MCP honeypot is new this year, which tells you where deception tooling is heading as more attack surface shifts into agent tool calls. **Pricing:** free and open source, GPL-3.0.
Zeek
Instead of firing alerts directly, Zeek turns raw network traffic into structured, scriptable logs, connections, DNS, HTTP, TLS handshakes, that most SIEMs end up ingesting from underneath. Build it from source with the standard `./configure && make && sudo make install`, or grab a packaged build from zeek.org. **Pricing:** free, open source (BSD-3-Clause-style license).
osquery
Commercial EDR dashboards often sit on top of osquery's data layer: it exposes processes, open sockets, logged-in users, and installed packages as SQL tables queryable across an entire fleet at once. Install a package for your OS from osquery.io/downloads, or `brew install osquery` on macOS. **Pricing:** free, open source (dual Apache-2.0/GPL-2.0, your choice).
GRR Rapid Response
Google built GRR for its own incident response and still runs it internally: a lightweight client agent deployed across a fleet, controlled from a central server for pulling artifacts and running YARA scans at scale instead of walking to each machine by hand. Deploy the server through the docker-compose setup documented at grr-doc.readthedocs.io. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0).
Zircolite
September 26, 2026's v4.1.0 release added Sigma correlation-rule support to Zircolite, so multi-event detections that used to need a real SIEM behind them now run standalone against a log file. Point it at EVTX, Sysmon-for-Linux, or Auditd output with `python3 zircolite.py --evtx sysmon.evtx --ruleset rules/rules_windows_merged.json`, or use the no-Python-required binary release. **Pricing:** free (code under LGPL-3.0; bundled rule sets carry their own licenses, including the Detection Rule License for SigmaHQ content).

OSINT & Investigation

Sherlock
Checks a username against 400-plus platforms to see where an account exists, useful for mapping exposure before an assessment. `pipx install sherlock-project` or run it via Docker, then `sherlock <username>`. It's the tool most OSINT lists lead with, and commit activity is current. **Pricing:** free, open source (MIT).
OWASP Amass
Passive and active reconnaissance for mapping an organization's external attack surface: subdomains, IP ranges, netblocks, ASNs. Grab the Go binary or Docker image and run `amass enum -d <domain>` against infrastructure you own. It's an OWASP flagship project; v5.1.1 shipped April 7, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0); optional paid API integrations (WhoisXML, for example) improve result coverage.
ExifTool
Reads and strips EXIF, IPTC, XMP, and GPS metadata from thousands of file formats — the standard way to check what a photo or document is quietly carrying before you publish it, or to pull that data during an investigation. `exiftool -gps:all file.jpg` gets you the location fields in one line. Version 13.59 shipped May 27, 2026. **Pricing:** free (dual Artistic-1.0-Perl/GPL license).
SpiderFoot
An automated OSINT reconnaissance framework with over 200 modules that enumerate subdomains, email addresses, phone numbers, social accounts, breach exposure, open ports, and exposed cloud storage buckets, then correlate everything into a single scan report through a local web UI. It's the tool most OSINT toolkits list first for a reason: point it at a target and walk away. Run it via the Docker image or from source with `pip`. v4.0 is the current stable line. **Pricing:** free, open source (MIT); a hosted "HX" cloud edition exists separately.
IntelOwl
A self-hosted threat-intelligence aggregation platform: submit a file, IP, domain, URL, or hash once and it fans the query out to dozens of analyzers — VirusTotal, Shodan, YARA, ClamAV, mobile malware analysis, PCAP inspection — then returns the enriched, correlated results through one API call instead of a dozen separate lookups. Deploy it with the bundled `initialize.sh` script and Docker Compose stack. **Pricing:** free, open source (AGPL-3.0).
XposedOrNot
A breach-data search engine covering more than 11.5 billion exposed records: check whether an email shows up in a known breach, whether a password has leaked, or set up domain-wide monitoring with alerts if anything tied to your organization surfaces later. It recently opened up a phishing-domain scanner to its free tier, watching for newly registered lookalike domains aimed at a brand. No signup is needed for the basic email and password checks, and the project is open source on GitHub for teams that want to self-host it. **Pricing:** free — the maintainers state plainly that every tool on the site, including domain monitoring and the CXO dashboard, has no paid tier.
BBOT
BBOT chains subdomain enumeration, port and web scanning, cloud-bucket discovery, and breach-data checks into one recursive recon pipeline, so a scan builds on what the previous module found instead of running every step in isolation. `pipx install bbot`, then `bbot -t yourdomain.com -p subdomain-enum` starts a run. Black Lantern Security has kept it shipping since 2022, with v3.0.2 out this week. **Pricing:** free and open source, AGPL-3.0 — a copyleft license worth checking before embedding it in a hosted service.
Sherloq
Sherloq is a Qt-based image forensics bench for the part of OSINT that isn't domain lookups — tampering detection, compression-artifact analysis, PRNU fingerprinting, and EXIF anomaly checks on a single photo. Clone the repo, install the Python requirements, run `sherloq.py` for the GUI. It's been around since 2017; its latest commits bumped the bundled ExifTool and fixed PRNU calculations. **Pricing:** free and open source, GPL-3.0.
Consensus-OSINT
Consensus-OSINT folds 19 separate username, email, and phone lookup projects into one CLI with bulk search and evidence graphs, so one command replaces stitching a dozen tools together by hand. `pip install "consensus-osint[modules,pdf]"`, then `consensus email "address@example.com"` is the entire setup. It's a few weeks old as of this writing, maintained by a community of OSINT practitioners rather than one person. **Pricing:** free and open source, GPL-3.0-or-later.
theHarvester
theHarvester is usually the first tool cited on every OSINT checklist, and for good reason: it pulls emails, subdomains, employee names, and open ports for a domain straight from public search engines without ever touching the target directly. `pip install theHarvester`, then run it against infrastructure you're scoped to look at. **Pricing:** free, open source (GPL-2.0).
Photon
Point Photon at a site and it crawls the whole thing, pulling out URLs, emails, social handles, files, subdomains, and JS endpoints as it goes, then exports the result to JSON or CSV instead of leaving you to scrape terminal output. `pip install photon-py`, then `python3 photon.py -u <url>`. **Pricing:** free, open source (GPL-3.0).
Maigret
Roughly 5,900 sites get checked against a single username when you run Maigret, which builds a dossier of matching accounts with recursive searching and exports to HTML, PDF, JSON, or CSV. Its September 18, 2026 release (v0.6.6) added optional AI-assisted analysis on top of the existing search, going well past the username tools most OSINT lists lead with. `pip install maigret` then `maigret <username>`, or run it as a web UI via Docker. **Pricing:** free, open source (MIT).

Privacy & Encryption

Tor Browser
Routes traffic through the Tor relay network to resist tracking and censorship — still the reference way to browse anonymously, and still actively shipped. Download the desktop build for Windows, macOS, or Linux, or the Android app, straight from the Tor Project. v15.0.20 shipped August 18, 2026. **Pricing:** free (Tor core is 3-clause BSD; the browser bundles Firefox under MPL-2.0).
age
A file-encryption tool and Go library with small, explicit keys and no config file to get wrong, increasingly the default replacement for `gpg -c` when you just need to encrypt a file to a recipient's public key. Install via your package manager or `go install filippo.io/age/cmd/...@latest`, then `age-keygen` and `age -r <pubkey>`. The 1.3 line added post-quantum support. **Pricing:** free, open source (BSD-3-Clause).
SimpleX Chat
An end-to-end encrypted messenger that skips persistent user identifiers entirely: no phone number, no account ID tying messages back to you across the network. Run the mobile apps or the terminal client, and self-host your own SMP relay if you'd rather not rely on the default servers. v7.1.0-beta.1 shipped August 20, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (AGPL-3.0).
VeraCrypt
On-the-fly disk, container, and hidden-volume encryption, built as the maintained successor to TrueCrypt after that project shut down. v1.26.29 (June 11, 2026) added Argon2id key derivation and patched two security issues, including one affecting hidden-volume deniability — worth updating for if you're running an older build. Grab an installer for Windows, macOS, or Linux from the project site, or build from source. **Pricing:** free (dual-licensed under Apache 2.0 and the TrueCrypt License 3.0, which restricts naming derivative works "VeraCrypt" or "TrueCrypt").
Briar
A peer-to-peer encrypted messenger with no central server: messages sync directly device-to-device over Tor when you're online, or over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when you're not, which is the point for activists and journalists who need something that still works when the network doesn't cooperate. Install from F-Droid, Google Play, or a direct APK. v1.5.19 shipped July 13, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (GPL-3.0-or-later for the Android client, AGPL for the desktop build).
Betterleaks
A secrets scanner for git history, filesystems, GitHub and GitLab orgs, and cloud storage, built by Gitleaks' original author after losing control of the Gitleaks project and name. Instead of leaning on entropy heuristics, it scores matches using CEL-based contextual rules and BPE tokenization, which the maintainers report catches far more real secrets with fewer false positives — and its config is a drop-in replacement for existing Gitleaks setups. `brew install betterleaks`, `docker pull ghcr.io/betterleaks/betterleaks`, or `go install github.com/betterleaks/betterleaks@latest`. **Pricing:** free, open source (MIT).
libsodium
libsodium is the hard-to-misuse crypto library you reach for when you want authenticated encryption, signatures, key exchange and password hashing with sane defaults and bindings in nearly every language. `apt install libsodium-dev` or build from the tarball. The reason it earns a fresh slot: 1.0.22 on 2026-04-09 added ML-KEM-768 and the X-Wing hybrid KEM, which the release notes recommend as the default KEM for most applications, bringing post-quantum key exchange into the mainstream library rather than a research fork. **Pricing:** free and open source (ISC).
liboqs
liboqs collects the NIST post-quantum algorithms behind one C API — ML-KEM, ML-DSA, SLH-DSA, FrodoKEM, HQC and more — with wrappers for Python, Go, Java and .NET and an OpenSSL 3 provider. Build it with CMake and Ninja. 0.16.0 on 2026-07-09 replaced SPHINCS+ with SLH-DSA, updated HQC to the 2025 spec, and fixed a verification out-of-bounds read tracked as CVE-2026-46344. The README is blunt that it is for prototyping and hybrid deployments, not as a drop-in for production secrets. **Pricing:** free and open source (MIT).
Delta Chat
Delta Chat is a messenger that runs over email transport with OpenPGP end-to-end encryption, so there is no central server to trust and no phone number to hand over; its default chatmail relays issue random addresses you can also self-host. Install it from the download page on Android, iOS, desktop or the usual package managers. The March 2026 "zero metadata" release encrypted the mail headers that used to leak the social graph, randomised the outer date, and stripped key IDs from OpenPGP packets, with weekly releases since. **Pricing:** free and open source (MPL-2.0 core).
Session
Session routes messages through its own onion network so no central server ever learns who's talking to whom, and signup needs nothing beyond a generated account ID — no phone number. Install the desktop or mobile app, or build from source to audit it yourself. Session Protocol v2, announced October 13, 2026, adds post-quantum crypto on top of existing forward secrecy. **Pricing:** free and open source, GPL-3.0.
ferret-scan
AWS Labs built ferret-scan to catch PII, API keys, and other secrets in files before they leak, scoring each match by context and redacting it while preserving the surrounding format. It runs entirely offline — nothing scanned leaves the machine — as a single Go binary, a `pip install`, or a pre-commit hook that outputs SARIF for CI. It's a recent addition to the AWS open-source labs catalog. **Pricing:** free and open source, Apache-2.0.
OpenMLS
OpenMLS implements the IETF's Messaging Layer Security protocol (RFC 9420) in Rust — the newer standard for scalable group encryption several messaging vendors are building toward instead of stretching Signal's double-ratchet design across large group chats. Add it as a Cargo dependency and swap in whichever crypto provider you want. Version 0.9.1 shipped October 7, 2026. **Pricing:** free and open source, MIT.
KeePassXC
No cloud account required: KeePassXC keeps your passwords in a local AES-256 or ChaCha20 encrypted database file, with browser integration and a `keepassxc-cli` for scripting. Install it from your package manager or grab the AppImage. **Pricing:** free, open source (GPL-2/GPL-3, multi-licensed with some MIT/BSD/LGPL components).
Cryptomator
Cryptomator encrypts individual files and filenames before they ever reach Dropbox, Google Drive, or whatever cloud storage you're already using, mounting the encrypted vault as a virtual drive so nothing else in your workflow has to change. Install the desktop client from cryptomator.org or `brew install --cask cryptomator`; mobile apps are priced separately on their app stores. **Pricing:** free, open source desktop client (GPLv3); commercial license available for ISVs and resellers, mobile apps paid.
OnionShare
Host a file, a static site, or a chat room as a temporary Tor onion service straight from your own laptop, no third-party server involved anywhere in the chain, and that's the entirety of what OnionShare does. `pip install onionshare-cli`, or grab the Flatpak, Snap, or platform installer from onionshare.org. **Pricing:** free, open source (GPLv3).
Presidio
Microsoft spun Presidio out into an independent, community-governed organization called Data Privacy Stack in mid-2026, moving it off a single vendor's roadmap without changing what it does: detect and redact PII across text, images, and structured data using a mix of regex and NER, with pluggable operators to replace, hash, or encrypt whatever it finds. `pip install presidio-analyzer presidio-anonymizer` gets both halves running. **Pricing:** free, open source (MIT).

AppSec & Supply Chain

Semgrep
A semantic-grep SAST engine covering 30-plus languages with over 2,800 free community rules, fast enough to run on every commit instead of once a quarter. `pip install semgrep`, `brew install semgrep`, or pull the Docker image. The core engine ships under LGPL-2.1; cross-file dataflow, the Pro rule pack, and supply-chain scanning sit behind the paid AppSec Platform. **Pricing:** free open source engine; Platform free up to 10 contributors, then $30/contributor/month.
OSV-Scanner
Google's SCA scanner queries the OSV.dev vulnerability database across 20-plus ecosystems, and the v2 line rewrote the extraction pipeline on OSV-Scalibr, adding guided remediation and container-layer attribution. `go install github.com/google/osv-scanner/v2/cmd/osv-scanner@latest`, then `osv-scanner scan source -r .`. v2.5.0 shipped August 7, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0), no paid tier.
Sigstore Cosign
Signs and verifies container images and other artifacts, keyless or key-based, and anchors them to the Rekor transparency log with in-toto/SLSA attestations. Most of the Sigstore ecosystem builds around it. Install via `brew install cosign` or the `sigstore/cosign-installer` GitHub Action. v3.1.3 shipped August 6, 2026, patching a verification-bypass CVE. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0).
Socket CLI
Flags dependency confusion, typosquats, and malicious packages using behavioral analysis instead of matching against known CVEs, which catches supply-chain attacks before a CVE ever gets assigned. `npm install -g @socketsecurity/cli`, then `socket scan create`, or gate installs with `socket npm install`. The CLI is open source; the backing platform is proprietary. **Pricing:** free up to 1,000 scans/month; Team from $25/dev/month.
OWASP ZAP
A dynamic application security testing tool combining an intercepting proxy, a spider, and an active scanner, useful both for automated CI scans and as a manual pentesting proxy when you need to poke at requests by hand. It's one of OWASP's flagship projects and still among the most-used DAST tools around, with weekly development builds even though the last tagged stable release predates them. Download the desktop app, run the Docker image, or drive it headless in daemon mode. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0).
GUAC
Ingests SBOMs (CycloneDX, SPDX), SLSA and in-toto attestations, OSV vulnerability data, and OpenSSF Scorecard results into a queryable graph, so instead of grepping through a pile of SBOM files you can ask "what depends on this library" or "where did this artifact come from" directly. v1.1.0 shipped March 13, 2026, building on the project's 1.0 milestone from mid-2025; it's incubating at OpenSSF with backing from Google, Kusari, Purdue, and Citi. The Docker Compose quickstart brings up the full local stack. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0).
GuardDog
Scans PyPI, npm, Go modules, Rust crates, RubyGems, GitHub Actions, and VS Code extensions for malicious and typosquatted packages by correlating static-analysis signals — network access, obfuscation, install-time scripts — with threat indicators in the same file, rather than just flagging names that look similar to popular packages. That correlation step is what catches attacks a pure typosquat list misses. `uvx guarddog pypi scan requests`, `pip install guarddog`, or the Docker image. Currently on the v3 line. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0).
Opengrep
Opengrep is the community-governed fork of Semgrep, started after Semgrep moved features behind a commercial licence, and backed by a group of AppSec vendors. Existing Semgrep-format rulesets run unchanged across 30-plus languages with SARIF output and native Windows support. Install with the shell script and run `opengrep scan --config auto .`. The tradeoff to know: cross-file dataflow stayed in Semgrep's paid product, so this is pattern-based SAST, not whole-program taint. v1.33.1 shipped 2026-10-29. **Pricing:** free and open source (LGPL-2.1).
cdxgen
cdxgen is the most complete CycloneDX generator going, producing SBOMs, cryptography BOMs and host BOMs from source trees, lockfiles, container images and live machines, then pushing them to Dependency-Track. `brew install cdxgen` or run the container. v13 moved the project out of the CycloneDX org and renamed the npm package to `@cdxgen/cdxgen`, so old install lines need updating; v13.6.0 on 2026-10-31 added an IDE-extension and agent-config inventory built to catch a tampered Claude Code build distributed through Cursor's marketplace. **Pricing:** free and open source (Apache-2.0).
bumblebee
bumblebee is a read-only scanner from Perplexity that inventories a developer machine — npm, PyPI, Go, RubyGems, Composer and Homebrew metadata, editor and browser extensions, MCP host configs and skill lockfiles — and matches it against exposure catalogs of known supply-chain compromises by exact name and version. It never runs a package manager. `go install github.com/perplexityai/bumblebee/cmd/bumblebee@latest`, then scan your home directory. Open-sourced 2026-05-22 after the npm and IDE-extension worms of the past year, and the threat catalogs keep landing. **Pricing:** free and open source (Apache-2.0).
Google Mantis
Mantis is Google's agent toolkit for finding, reproducing and patching vulnerabilities: a set of skills plus a reference harness running a multi-stage pipeline that threat-models, hypothesises, reproduces in a sandbox, then patches with adversarial verification. Clone the reference directory, run the installer, authenticate to a model provider and point it at a codebase. Released 2026-09-02. The repo is explicit that it is a demonstration, not a supported product, so run it in isolation and verify before filing anything it reports. **Pricing:** free and open source (Apache-2.0); you pay for model inference.
OpenSSF Scorecard
Scorecard checks a GitHub-hosted repo against roughly twenty supply-chain hygiene signals — pinned CI dependencies, branch protection, signed releases, fuzzing, dangerous workflow patterns — and returns a 0-to-10 score plus the detail behind it. Run `scorecard --repo=github.com/org/repo`, install via Homebrew, or drop the official GitHub Action into a workflow to score every PR. It's become the default input other dependency-risk tools build policy on top of. **Pricing:** free and open source, Apache-2.0.
in-toto Witness
Witness wraps each build-pipeline step to produce a signed in-toto attestation of what actually ran, then checks an embedded OPA policy to confirm an artifact came from an authorized sequence of steps before release — a layer below signing, closer to provenance than to the signature itself. One install script and `witness run -- <your build command>` gets attestations flowing. It's a CNCF in-toto project, donated by TestifySec. **Pricing:** free and open source, Apache-2.0.
StepSecurity Harden-Runner
Harden-Runner watches GitHub Actions runners at the eBPF level for unexpected network egress, file writes, and process activity — it's the tool that caught the Trivy build compromise as it happened. Add `uses: step-security/harden-runner@v2.22.3` with `egress-policy: audit` as the first step in a job. The free tier covers public repos on GitHub-hosted runners; private repos and self-hosted runners need the paid tier. **Pricing:** freemium — free for public repos on GitHub-hosted runners, paid Enterprise tier for private repos and self-hosted/Kubernetes runners.
Strix
Strix runs autonomous agents that recon an application, attempt exploitation, and validate findings with a working proof instead of a flagged line in a report — a SAST/DAST hybrid built around AI agents rather than signature rules. `curl -sSL https://strix.ai/install | bash`, then point it at your own codebase; it runs locally, in CI, or air-gapped. It launched in mid-2025 and has picked up over 72,000 stars since. **Pricing:** free and open source, Apache-2.0.
Syft & Grype
Syft generates an SBOM (SPDX or CycloneDX) from a container image or filesystem, and its companion scanner, [Grype](https://github.com/anchore/grype), reads that SBOM, or scans directly, to flag known CVEs in OS and language packages, the pairing most teams default to before evaluating anything paid. Install either with `curl -sSfL https://get.anchore.io/syft | sudo sh` (swap in Grype's install URL for the scanner), or grab them via Homebrew or as container images. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0).
OWASP Dependency-Track
Instead of a pile of SBOM reports to reconcile by hand, Dependency-Track ingests CycloneDX SBOMs continuously and cross-references every component against NVD, OSS Index, and GitHub Advisories in one dashboard. Deploy the API server and frontend containers with Docker Compose. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0).
SonarQube Community Edition
SonarQube Community Edition scans more than 30 languages for bugs, code smells, and security hotspots, decorating pull requests and gating merges through a quality gate instead of producing a report nobody reads. `docker run sonarqube:community` gets a server running; scan a project with `sonar-scanner`. Paid Developer, Enterprise, and Data Center editions add more languages and rules under a separate commercial license. **Pricing:** free, open source (LGPL-3.0) for Community Edition; paid editions under a commercial license.
zizmor
zizmor moved out of an individual maintainer's GitHub namespace into its own `zizmorcore` organization this year, a sign of how far it's grown into the default scanner for GitHub Actions workflows. It's a static analyzer purpose-built for CI/CD configs, catching template-injection RCE, credential leakage, and overly broad `permissions:` blocks before a workflow ships. `pipx install zizmor`, `cargo install zizmor`, or `brew install zizmor`, then `zizmor .` against a repo. **Pricing:** free, open source (MIT).

Cloud & Infra Security

Prowler
Runs hundreds of checks against AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, and M365 for CIS, PCI-DSS, and SOC2 compliance — the CSPM CLI most teams reach for before paying for a hosted equivalent. `pip install prowler` or `docker run toniblyx/prowler`. v5.39.1 shipped August 18, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0); Prowler Cloud is a separate paid hosted tier.
Kubescape
A CNCF-incubating platform scanning Kubernetes clusters and manifests for misconfiguration, vulnerabilities, RBAC issues, and runtime drift. Install with the one-line script, Homebrew, or `helm upgrade --install kubescape kubescape/kubescape-operator`. v4.0.12 shipped August 12, 2026, adding concurrent image-scan pipelines and runtime profile drift detection. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0); maintainer ARMO sells a commercial management layer.
Trivy
One scanner for container images, IaC, SBOM generation, secrets, and misconfiguration, with enough overlap with the rest of this bucket that it's often the only scanner a small team runs. `brew install trivy` or `docker run aquasec/trivy`. v0.74.0 shipped August 14, 2026. Worth knowing: the project suffered a supply-chain compromise in March 2026 that's since been remediated. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0); Aqua Security sells a commercial platform built on top.
Falco
CNCF-graduated runtime security using eBPF or a kernel module to catch abnormal syscalls, privilege escalation, and container escapes as they happen. Deploy as a Kubernetes DaemonSet via Helm, or try the Docker Compose demo first. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0); Sysdig, the original creator, sells a commercial platform built on top.
Checkov
Static analysis for infrastructure as code across Terraform, CloudFormation, Kubernetes manifests, Helm, Bicep, ARM templates, and Dockerfiles, backed by over 1,000 built-in policies plus graph-based checks that catch misconfigurations spanning multiple resources. It also scans container images and OSS dependencies, so one tool covers both the IaC and the artifact it builds. `pip3 install checkov` or `brew install checkov`. v3.3.15 shipped August 27, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0).
Tetragon
eBPF-based security observability that can enforce, not just alert: using kernel LSM hooks, it can synchronously block or kill a process the moment it does something it shouldn't, while tracking exec events, syscalls, network activity, and file access tagged with Kubernetes identity. That in-kernel blocking step is what separates it from detection-only runtime tools. Install via Helm chart or the `tetra` CLI. v1.7.1 shipped August 25, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0, with some BPF components under BSD-2-Clause and GPL-2.0), a CNCF project originally from Isovalent.
Kyverno
A Kubernetes-native policy engine that validates, mutates, and generates cluster resources through admission control and background scans, using ordinary Kubernetes YAML instead of a separate policy language — a lower barrier to entry than Rego-based alternatives for teams already fluent in K8s manifests. It also verifies container image signatures at admission time. Install with the Helm chart in the repo's `/charts` directory. v1.19.0 shipped August 20, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0), a CNCF incubating project.
Cartography
Cartography pulls your cloud estate into a Neo4j graph — AWS, Azure, GCP, Okta, GitHub, Kubernetes and more than 40 sources — so you can query attack paths instead of eyeballing consoles. `pip install cartography`, stand up Neo4j, and sync with read-only credentials; a rules engine flags public RDS, admin static keys, GuardDuty findings and workload-identity issues. It is the CNCF Sandbox default for cloud asset and permission mapping, with v0.144.0 on 2026-10-29. **Pricing:** free and open source (Apache-2.0).
Inspektor Gadget
Inspektor Gadget is an eBPF toolbox for the moments Falco or Tetragon are more opinionated than you want: individual gadgets like `trace_exec`, `trace_open` and `trace_sni` ship as signed OCI images you run on demand. `kubectl krew install gadget && kubectl gadget deploy`, or run `ig` standalone on a host, with Prometheus and OpenTelemetry export. v0.58.0 on 2026-11-04 added SELinux and rename tracing. It needs a 5.10+ kernel with BTF. **Pricing:** free and open source (Apache-2.0).
kubesplaining
kubesplaining is Cloudsplaining's idea carried into Kubernetes: 104 rules across RBAC over-privilege, pod-escape exposure and multi-hop escalation paths to cluster-admin or node escape, with remediation patches in the output. `kubectl krew install kubesplaining` and run it against a cluster you own. Created in April 2026, now in the krew index, with v1.3.0 on 2026-09-22 adding EKS access-entry export and the Kubernetes 1.36 mutating-admission injection path. It is single-maintainer and small, so read what it changes. **Pricing:** free and open source (Apache-2.0).
owLSM
owLSM runs a stateful Sigma rule engine inside the Linux kernel through eBPF LSM hooks and blocks at the hook rather than alerting after the fact, which is the line between detection and prevention. Build it in the provided CI image and run the binary; a compatibility script checks your host first. Cybereason open-sourced it in January 2026, and v0.9.0 on 2026-07-29 added aarch64. It wants a 5.14+ kernel on x86_64, has a slow cold start, and ships no packaged installer yet. **Pricing:** free and open source (GPL-2.0).
Cloud Custodian
Cloud Custodian runs YAML rules that query, filter, and — if you choose — automatically remediate misconfigured resources across AWS, Azure, GCP, and Kubernetes: untagged instances, unencrypted buckets, public security groups. `pip install c7n`, then `custodian run policy.yml` fires a policy against a live account. It's a CNCF Incubating project that's been doing this since 2015, with v0.9.52.0 out in September. **Pricing:** free and open source, Apache-2.0.
OPA Gatekeeper
Gatekeeper is a Kubernetes admission controller built directly on Open Policy Agent — define a ConstraintTemplate and Constraint as CRDs, and it validates or mutates incoming resources against that policy, with an audit mode that flags drift in what's already running. `helm install gatekeeper/gatekeeper -n gatekeeper-system` is the whole deployment. It's the OPA-native admission-control project, CNCF Graduated, with a v4 GA in the works. **Pricing:** free and open source, Apache-2.0.
KubeArmor
KubeArmor enforces least-privilege behavior on containers and nodes through Linux Security Modules — BPF-LSM, AppArmor, SELinux — rather than just watching kernel events and alerting after the fact, which is what separates it from detection-only eBPF tools. `karmor install`, or the Helm chart from kubearmor/charts, gets policies enforcing. It's a CNCF Sandbox project on its 1.7.3 release. **Pricing:** free and open source, Apache-2.0.
Steampipe
Steampipe turns a CSPM check into a SQL `select` statement: cloud and SaaS state across roughly 140 plugins (AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, GitHub, and more) gets exposed through a Postgres-compatible interface, no ETL pipeline required. `brew install turbot/tap/steampipe` on macOS, or the install script on Linux. Worth flagging before you deploy it at work: it's AGPL-3.0, a copyleft license most CSPM CLIs in this space don't carry. **Pricing:** free, open source (AGPL-3.0).
KICS
Checkmarx maintains KICS as a static scanner for Terraform, CloudFormation, Kubernetes manifests, Docker, Ansible, and Helm, catching misconfigurations before any of it gets applied. Installation is documented at docs.kics.io rather than the README; the short version is a prebuilt binary or Docker image and a `kics scan` against your IaC directory. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0).
StackRox
StackRox's v5.0.0 release candidate, out September 28, 2026, retires the legacy StackRox Scanner in favor of Scanner V4, turns on VM scanning by default for OpenShift Virtualization, and adds cosign signature verification, a real architectural shift rather than a point release. The stable line underneath is Red Hat's Kubernetes-native CNAPP, watching build, deploy, and runtime risk for containerized workloads. Install via Helm: `helm install stackrox-central-services stackrox/stackrox-central-services -n stackrox --create-namespace`. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0).

Security AI & Agents

NVIDIA Garak
Probes an LLM or endpoint with adversarial prompts across 50-plus modules covering jailbreaks, prompt injection, data leakage, toxicity, and hallucination, then scores what comes back. `pip install garak`, then `garak --model_type openai --model_name gpt-4o-mini --probes promptinject`. NVIDIA's AI Red Team has backed it since 2023; v0.16.0 shipped August 4, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0); you pay only for the target model's API calls.
Snyk agent-scan
Formerly Invariant Labs' mcp-scan, folded into Snyk after the acquisition. It scans installed MCP servers and agent configs for prompt-injection-laden tool descriptions, tool poisoning, and cross-origin tool shadowing, and can run as a proxy to guardrail live MCP traffic. `uvx snyk-agent-scan@latest` gets you the core scanner; a free Snyk account unlocks the rest. v0.6.0 shipped August 19, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source core (Apache-2.0); deeper features require a Snyk account.
NeMo Guardrails
Defines programmable rails for LLM applications using Colang rules — block jailbreaks, restrict topics, validate input and output before and after a model call. `pip install nemoguardrails`, then write a `config.yml` and rail files. NVIDIA has maintained it since 2023; v0.23.0 shipped July 1, 2026. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0). --- *28 tools this month. Offensive tooling is listed for systems you own or are authorized to test. Found a dead link or have something to add? Reply to the email.*
Microsoft PyRIT
An open automation framework for red-teaming generative AI systems: run standardized scenarios covering content harms, data leakage, and jailbreaks against OpenAI, Azure, Anthropic, Google, or custom HTTP endpoints, composing datasets and attack strategies for repeatable assessments across hundreds of objectives at once. `pyrit_scan` runs it from the command line, or `pyrit_shell` for an interactive session. Microsoft's AI Red Team has maintained it since 2024. **Pricing:** free, open source (MIT).
Promptfoo
A CLI for evaluating and red-teaming LLM applications: it generates adversarial test cases — jailbreaks, prompt injection, PII-leakage probes — against a target model or app and produces a vulnerability dashboard scored against frameworks like the OWASP LLM Top 10. OpenAI acquired the project on March 9, 2026, and the maintainers have committed in the README that it stays open source and MIT-licensed regardless. `npm install -g promptfoo` or `npx promptfoo@latest`. **Pricing:** free, open source core (MIT); a separate paid enterprise tier exists for teams that want managed hosting.
DeepTeam
Wraps your LLM or agent in a callback, then runs it through more than 50 vulnerability types and 20 adversarial attack methods — multi-turn jailbreaks, prompt injection, bias probes, SQL injection attempts through the model — mapped to OWASP LLM Top 10 and NIST categories, scoring each as pass or fail. `pip install -U deepteam` gets the framework running against a target you define in a few lines of Python. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0).
NVIDIA SkillSpector
SkillSpector statically scans AI agent skills and MCP skill packages before you install them, walking the code for exec, eval and subprocess calls, tracking taint from environment variables to network sinks, and matching 64 patterns across prompt injection, data exfiltration and tool poisoning. It returns findings, a risk score and an install-or-not verdict. `uv tool install` from the git repo, then `skillspector scan ./my-skill/`. It broke out in August 2026 and is past 24,000 stars; v2.13.3 on 2026-11-02 is the current release. Install from git, not PyPI. **Pricing:** free and open source (Apache-2.0).
Cisco AI Defense MCP Scanner
This scanner points at a local or remote MCP server, its config files or its tool code and looks for prompt injection in tool descriptions, tool poisoning, misleading server instructions and vulnerable dependencies, with pluggable analysers. The YARA analyser is fully offline and needs no key; LLM and Cisco API analysers go deeper, and a behavioural command checks whether tool code matches its documented behaviour. `uv tool install cisco-ai-mcp-scanner`. v4.8.7 on 2026-10-20 migrated to the MCP 2.0 protocol. **Pricing:** free and open source (Apache-2.0); only the Cisco AI Defense analyser is paid.
Fickling
Fickling, from Trail of Bits, decompiles Python pickle bytecode back to readable code and traces the pickle VM without executing it, so you can see what a `.pkl` or PyTorch checkpoint will run rather than trusting a yes/no verdict. `pip install fickling`, then `fickling --check-safety -p model.pkl`; it can also install a runtime hook that makes `pickle.load` refuse unsafe files. v0.1.13 on 2026-11-03 is a hardening release that closed four safety-check bypasses and dropped Python 3.10. **Pricing:** free and open source (LGPL-3.0).
ToolHive
ToolHive runs MCP servers inside isolated containers with per-request access policy, network filtering, and secrets injection, plus a gateway adding OIDC/OAuth SSO and OpenTelemetry metrics for anyone running MCP servers in production instead of on a laptop. Install the CLI or desktop app from stacklok.com, or deploy the Kubernetes operator for a fleet of servers. Stacklok has pushed to it daily since early 2025. **Pricing:** free and open source, Apache-2.0.
Agent Governance Toolkit
Microsoft's toolkit sits in front of autonomous agents as a runtime policy layer — sub-millisecond enforcement, execution sandboxing, and a compliance score mapped against all ten risks in the OWASP Agentic AI Top 10. `pip install "agent-governance-toolkit[full]"` covers Python; Rust, Go, .NET, and TypeScript bindings also ship. Microsoft open-sourced it in April 2026, and it's already past 6,500 stars. **Pricing:** free and open source, MIT.
Agent OPFOR
Agent OPFOR red-teams AI agents and MCP servers specifically, rather than probing a single LLM call in isolation — it generates prompt injections, jailbreaks, tool-misuse attempts, and multi-turn reasoning attacks against your agent, then has a separate LLM judge score what got through. It runs from the CLI, an IDE plugin, or a browser extension. The project is six months old and already past 500 stars. **Pricing:** free and open source, Apache-2.0.
Guardrails AI
Guardrails AI wraps an LLM call with input and output validators, PII detection, jailbreak and prompt-injection checks, schema enforcement, hallucination checks, pulled from a hub of reusable guards instead of hand-rolled regex. `pip install guardrails-ai` gets the framework running; guards install separately from the hub as you need them. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0).
Meta PurpleLlama
PurpleLlama bundles Meta's LLM security tooling under one repo: Llama Guard classifies prompts and responses for unsafe content, Prompt Guard flags injection and jailbreak attempts, Code Shield filters insecure code an LLM tries to output, and the CyberSecEval benchmarks red-team a model across multiple risk categories. The evaluation code and Code Shield are MIT; the Llama Guard and Prompt Guard model weights ship under the more restrictive Llama Community License. **Pricing:** free; evals and Code Shield under MIT, model weights under the Llama Community License with its own usage terms.
Giskard
Giskard's v2 line scanned tabular ML models; v3.0.0, out August 26, 2026, ripped that out for a ground-up rewrite aimed at multi-turn testing of AI agents instead. The new `giskard-scan` command red-teams a model or agent for prompt injection, jailbreaks, and harmful output, plus deeper RAG evaluation. `pip install giskard` with the `[scan]` extra for the vulnerability scanner; needs Python 3.12 or newer. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0). --- *28 tools this month. Offensive tooling is listed for systems you own or are authorized to test. Found a dead link or have something to add? Reply to the email.*

Labs & Learning

OWASP Juice Shop
A deliberately vulnerable web storefront with over 100 hacking challenges spanning the OWASP Top 10 — injection, broken auth, XSS — scored through an in-app leaderboard as you find each one. v20.0.0 (May 12, 2026) added prompt-injection and chatbot-manipulation challenges alongside the classic web bugs, and v20.2.0 (August 10, 2026) is current. `docker run -p 3000:3000 bkimminich/juice-shop` and you're solving challenges in under a minute. **Pricing:** free, open source (MIT).
CloudGoat
Deploys intentionally vulnerable AWS environments as scored scenarios — IAM privilege escalation, Lambda and ECS takeover, S3 breach chains — across 25 scenarios from easy to hard, torn down with the same tool once you're done. The scenario list now includes `agentcore_identity_confusion` and `bedrock_agent_hijacking`, which walk through hijacking a Bedrock agent's tool access rather than a traditional IAM path. `pipx install cloudgoat`, then `cloudgoat create <scenario-name>`. **Pricing:** free, open source (BSD-3-Clause); you pay only your own AWS bill while a scenario is running.
Damn Vulnerable AI Agent
Bills itself as the DVWA of AI agents: 21 intentionally broken agents across the OpenAI API, MCP, and A2A protocols, spanning 12 vulnerability categories like prompt injection, data exfiltration, and supply-chain attacks through tool poisoning. A built-in 22-challenge CTF board with a live scoreboard tracks progress, and it doubles as a place to see what agent identity controls actually stop. `docker run -p 9000:9000 -p 7001-7021:7001-7021 opena2a/dvaa:0.9.2`, then open `localhost:9000`. **Pricing:** free, open source (Apache-2.0). --- *28 tools this month. Offensive tooling is listed for systems you own or are authorized to test. Found a dead link or have something to add? Reply to the email.*
CTFd
CTFd is the platform most capture-the-flag events actually run on: challenge types, hints, team or solo modes, bracketed scoreboards, plugins and themes, and an admin API. `docker compose up` from the repo and you are hosting an event. It is the established default here because it is the one everyone has already used from the player side; 3.8.9 on 2026-10-22 is a security maintenance release. **Pricing:** free to self-host (Apache-2.0); hosted plans sold separately.
WebGoat
WebGoat is OWASP's deliberately insecure Java and Spring app, built as guided lessons with a WebWolf attacker helper so you work each vulnerability class with instructions rather than staring at a blank target. `docker run` it bound to localhost and open the lesson UI. v2026.5 on 2026-10-12 added lessons on command injection, an HMAC timing attack, HTTP parameter pollution and password storage, plus a chained multi-step challenge. **Pricing:** free and open source (GPL-2.0-or-later).
Ludus
Ludus turns a Proxmox box into a range builder: define a multi-VM environment in YAML — Windows AD, Linux hosts, routers, a SIEM — and it builds them with Packer and Ansible into per-user isolated networks with snapshots and a testing mode that blocks internet access. Install with the one-line script as root on Debian or Proxmox. The 2.x line, starting March 2026, added blueprints, cluster mode and a plugin system, through 2.3.10 in October. It is hardware-hungry, wants 32 GB of RAM and a wired NIC, and the GitHub mirror is archived, so use GitLab. **Pricing:** free core (AGPL-3.0); some 2.x features are enterprise. --- *31 tools this month. Offensive tooling is listed for systems you own or are authorized to test. Found a dead link or have something to add? Reply to the email.*
Hack The Box
Hack The Box is the practice range most people mean when they say they're "doing a box" — over 1,500 retired and active machines, live CTF events, and Pro Labs that simulate a full corporate network rather than one isolated target. Sign up free at hackthebox.com/get-started; no card is needed for starting machines and a chunk of Academy content. An AI Range for benchmarking agentic attackers launched October 6, 2026. **Pricing:** free tier plus paid VIP+ (around $25/month) and the newer PRO tier (around $49/month) adding ten flagship Pro Labs.
GOAD (Game of Active Directory)
GOAD stands up a deliberately broken multi-domain, multi-forest Active Directory lab — Kerberoasting, AS-REP roasting, ACL abuse, a stack of ADCS escalation paths — and it's the lab most AD-focused courses point students toward by now. Clone the repo and run `./goad.sh`, which drives Vagrant and Ansible (or Docker/Terraform, if you'd rather) to build the whole domain on your own machine. Orange Cyberdefense has kept it current, with commits as recent as five days ago. **Pricing:** free and open source, GPL-3.0.
Hackversity
Hackversity spins up an isolated, auto-terminating lab for each challenge in about a minute, across eight categories from web exploitation to reverse engineering, instead of making you set up a local VM for every exercise. Sign up with email or Google — no card needed for the free tier's community challenges and learning paths. It launched on Product Hunt on October 14, 2026, so the content library is still thinner than the established platforms. **Pricing:** free community tier; paid Unlimited tier removes the lab-session cap and unlocks Hard/Insane challenges, plus pay-per-use credits for hints. --- *29 tools this month. Offensive tooling is listed for systems you own or are authorized to test. Found a dead link or have something to add? Reply to the email.*

Agent Identity & Governance

SPIRE
*Non-human identity.* SPIRE is the CNCF-graduated reference implementation of SPIFFE, and the standard answer to issuing workload identities without static secrets. It attests workloads across Kubernetes, the three big clouds, Docker, Podman and TPM, then hands each one a short-lived X.509 or JWT SVID over the Workload API, with trust-domain federation between estates. Install the hardened Helm chart and run the server, then the agent; v1.15.5 shipped 2026-10-20. **Pricing:** free and open source (Apache-2.0).
agentgateway
*Agentic identity.* agentgateway is a Rust data-plane proxy for MCP, A2A and LLM traffic that terminates OAuth and JWT per the MCP authorization spec and applies CEL or RBAC rules per tool call, so an agent presents its own scoped identity instead of a borrowed human token. Install with the one-line script, point your agents through it, and it exchanges tokens toward backends while emitting per-agent telemetry. It joined the Linux Foundation's Agentic AI effort in June 2026; v1.7.0 on 2026-10-27 added OIDC session handling and always-on MCP session encryption, and is breaking in three places. **Pricing:** free and open source (Apache-2.0); Solo.io sells an enterprise build.
NVIDIA OpenShell
*Runtime policy.* OpenShell drops an autonomous coding agent into a kernel-enforced sandbox governed by a YAML policy over filesystem, syscalls, processes and network egress, and checks every outbound connection before it leaves. Credentials are injected only on requests to approved endpoints, so the agent never holds the real secret, and policy changes that widen that exposure get flagged for a human. Install with the shell script and run `openshell sandbox create`; v0.1.7 on 2026-11-03 moved all audit output to OCSF 1.8. It is young at 0.1.x with a long issue queue. **Pricing:** free and open source (Apache-2.0).
Obot
*Agent audit.* Obot is an MCP and LLM gateway that gives users one governed endpoint to approved MCP servers and records what passes through it: every gateway request logs the user, provider, requested versus served model, session, IP, token count and duration. Run the container, enforce tool access by IdP group over SSO and SCIM, and export encrypted JSONL audit logs on a schedule to S3, GCS or Azure with a 90-day default. Complete AI audit logs and the Obot Sentry workstation agent, which hooks Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and VS Code tool calls into the same schema, arrived in July 2026; v0.27.0 is the current stable. **Pricing:** free and open source (MIT); a licence key sets user and device limits.
CISO Assistant
*Governance & compliance.* CISO Assistant is the open-source GRC platform teams already run for ISO 27001 and SOC 2, and it ships the AI frameworks as loadable libraries: ISO/IEC 42001, the NIST AI RMF, the EU AI Act, MITRE ATLAS and the OWASP LLM checklist, plus a cross-mapping between ISO 42001 and the Secure Controls Framework. Clone it, run the compose script, and you can work an ISO 42001 or AI Act assessment, attach evidence, track an AI risk register and generate audit reports. v4.2.1 shipped 2026-11-01. **Pricing:** free and unlimited community edition (AGPL-3.0); the enterprise directory is commercial.