Andy’s been around the block, but I go back further, so perhaps I selectively remember:

• Metasploit 2003
• Nessus 1998
• SATAN 1995
• Crack 1991 (I wrote this one)

…and a few others; so I* asked ChatGPT to help me fill out the list a bit:

Tools that were going to kill the Internet (1985–2022)

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• 1988 – tcpdump
• 1989 – COPS
• 1991 – Crack
• 1992 – TIGER
• 1995 – SATAN
• 1996 – John the Ripper
• 1997 – Nmap
• 1998 – Nessus
• 1998 – Snort
• 1998 – Ethereal (later Wireshark)
• 1999 – Netcat
• 2000 – Kismet
• 2000 – THC Hydra
• 2001 – Ettercap
• 2003 – Metasploit
• 2003 – Scapy
• 2003 – Cain & Abel
• 2003 – Burp Suite
• 2004 – Aircrack
• 2004 – Yersinia
• 2006 – BackTrack Linux
• 2006 – sqlmap
• 2007 – Volatility
• 2008 – Social-Engineer Toolkit (SET)
• 2009 – Hashcat
• 2009 – Shodan
• 2010 – OWASP ZAP
• 2010 – BeEF
• 2011 – Mimikatz
• 2012 – Responder
• 2013 – Kali Linux
• 2013 – YARA
• 2013 – ZMap
• 2013 – Masscan
• 2015 – PowerShell Empire
• 2015 – CrackMapExec
• 2015 – Impacket
• 2015 – PowerSploit
• 2016 – BloodHound
• 2016 – Rubeus
• 2019 – Sliver
• 2019 – OWASP Amass
• 2020 – Nuclei
• 2021 – Feroxbuster
• 2022 – Havoc

Anyway, back to Andy’s article:

A tool called AutoSploit sews together existing hacking tools to offer even the most clueless hacker a way to automatically locate and compromise vulnerable internet-connected devices. The open-source program, released by a researcher who goes by the pseudonym Vector, combines the search engine for internet-connected devices known as Shodan with the hacking framework Metasploit to allow nearly point-and-click penetrations. Type in keywords to locate certain devices or targets, and AutoSploit will both list available targets and allow hackers to launch a menu of pre-loaded hacking techniques against them.

As an approach it sounds… mildly familiar.

https://www.wired.com/story/autosploit-tool-makes-unskilled-hacking-easier-than-ever

[*] props to bsky.realhackhistory.org for helping with memory jogging