Is Metasploit safe to use?

[GLaDOS]

Hello everyone!

I've recently been researching Metasploit as a tool to use to teach myself some of basic (or more advanced) security concepts; I am hoping to learn about the information security field and thought this might be something I could play around with and learn about different exploits and have a better understanding of them. This leads me to my question - is Metasploit something you can play around with? I mean I know there are commands and such that you would have to learn before you could really use Metasploit but what I mean is, is it safe/legal to use Metasploit? I don't want to just blindly install and start using this program only to find out I've broken some law or allowed some evil-doers access to my personal computer. When my quick Google searches did not turn up much on this, I thought I'd ask here.

Thanks for your help!

 

[KSoD]

From what I see it is safe. I dont know if I would just play around with it though. I would learn more about what it is actually doing before you go and "play" with it.

 

[carnageX]

Yes, it's legal to use metasploit. Pretty much everything there has already been patched up in some sort of way, so that users can't just go and download exploits and be script kiddies and try to crack into users' information with premade tools.

Metasploit goes well with BackTrack (a penetration testing distribution of Linux). If you plan on doing anything in security, I'd recommend checking it out; it's quite interesting to see what tools are out there. I've used it on my own network a few times to test out its features, and love it. There's a reason professional penetration testers use it too .

 

[PP Mguire]

^^ I use both.

 

[carnageX]

^^ I use both.

Haven't done anything really with metasploit. Just haven't really had time to delve down into it.

 

[PP Mguire]

Haven't done anything really with metasploit. Just haven't really had time to delve down into it.

If you know what you're doing with BT then there really is no point.

 

[carnageX]

If you know what you're doing with BT then there really is no point.

True. Doesn't BT come with a lot of stuff pretty much from metasploit anyway?

I haven't used BT extensively; just started using it again at the beginning of the summer (otherwise, last I touched it was BT3).

 

[PP Mguire]

True. Doesn't BT come with a lot of stuff pretty much from metasploit anyway?

I haven't used BT extensively; just started using it again at the beginning of the summer (otherwise, last I touched it was BT3).

BT has virtually all brute force and exploiting features that Metasploit uses. It just isn't in a nice shiny package. You have to user Terminal and command lines for most of the programs. When paying for Pro on Meta you have a webgui that pretty much does everything for you.

 

[carnageX]

BT has virtually all brute force and exploiting features that Metasploit uses. It just isn't in a nice shiny package. You have to user Terminal and command lines for most of the programs. When paying for Pro on Meta you have a webgui that pretty much does everything for you.

Yeah, I knew most of the things on BT was through terminal; I just figured metasploit was the same way; didn't know there was a Pro service with a fancy GUI lol.

 

[PP Mguire]

Yeah, I knew most of the things on BT was through terminal; I just figured metasploit was the same way; didn't know there was a Pro service with a fancy GUI lol.

Well the service is through a web interface. You have trial which doesn't let you play with the exploits or brute force software, then you have pro which has everything unlocked.