Top 10 CMD Commands Used by Security Experts

Command Prompt in Windows has around 280 commands and is used to perform operating system tasks from the command-line interface instead of the graphical Windows interface.

This article will discuss the Top 10 Windows CMD commands used by security researchers and hackers.

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First Step: Open CMD in Administrator mode

Top 10 CMD Commands Used by Security Experts

1. Know the IP Address of any website

The ping command sends an Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) Request message to a remote computer to verify LAN connectivity.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>ping www.allabouttesting.com

2. Resolving DNS into IP

C:\WINDOWS\system32>nslookup www.allabouttesting.com

The nslookup command queries your configured DNS server to discover the IP address.

3. Displaying the route path between your computer to website

C:\WINDOWS\system32>tracert www.allabouttesting.com

4. Show the ARP table

The arp command is used to display or change entries in the ARP cache.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>arp -a

5. Routing table, gateway, interface and metric

The route command is used to manipulate network routing tables.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>route print

6. See IP, gateway, dns and other info

The ipconfig command is used to display detailed IP information for each network adapter utilizing TCP/IP.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>ipconfig/all

7. See connection status
The netstat command is used to display all open network connections and listening ports.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>netstat -an

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8. Display or set a specific path available to executable files

C:\WINDOWS\system32>path

9. System File Checker is an automatic scan and repair tool mainly for Windows system files

C:\WINDOWS\system32>sfc /scannow

10. Wi-Fi password

If you forgot your Wi-Fi password, use the below command replacing SSID with the name of the network

C:\WINDOWS\system32> netsh wlan show profile SSID key=clear

If you’re not sure about the networks you’ve connected to, use the below command to find out the Wi-Fi network

C:\WINDOWS\system32> netsh wlan show profile

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Miscellaneous Commands

To check the password policy of the account

C:\WINDOWS\system32> net accounts

Display all users

C:\WINDOWS\system32> net users

To list credentials

C:\WINDOWS\system32> cmdkey /list

To list all available groups and information related to the administrator (group)

C:\WINDOWS\system32> net localgroup

C:\WINDOWS\system32> net localgroup Administrators

To list all environment variables

C:\WINDOWS\system32> set

Recycle Bin

C:\WINDOWS\system32> dir C:\$Recycle.Bin /s /b