Some of this software I use is good for cryptography, IT, digital forensics, and other stuff. I will update this list periodically to include other software that I find useful with short descriptions of what they are and how they work.
WinHex
Can be used as a hex editor. Very useful for unpacking dd files (raw) into a browsable logical drive in WinHex. Offers disk sanitization by performing multiple overwrite passes and can write arbitrary or random data patterns that appear encrypted but are actually fake. Can recover and view deleted files.
VeraCrypt
Software that can create a file that’s called a container that is fully encrypted which you can mount as a disk using VeraCrypt. The container isn’t an actual disk, but windows thinks it is and assigns it to a drive letter. It uses on-the-fly encryption which automatically encrypts data and only decrypts data that you are accessing and stores it in your computer’s RAM as you use it. When you unmount the container it removes access to the decrypted data in the RAM leaving nothing readable exposed.
PuTTY
Used for remoting into servers, switches, routers, and more. It uses protocols like SSH, Telnet, and Serial to connect to these remote systems. Very popular for managing these remote systems because PuTTY is simple and reliable. Great to use if you have a VPS as well.
HWiNFO
Great hardware diagnostics and monitoring tool that provides detailed, real-time information about every component in your system. Shows a lot of details like voltage to your graphics card, S.M.A.R.T information for your HDD, temperatures and much more. I used it to figure out what was wrong with my graphics card by checking the logs and seeing that I had numerous PCIe errors.
Nmap
Powerful network scanning and security auditing tool used to discover devices, open ports, and services running on a network. Very common tool used by network administrators and security professionals because of the information it provides for network topologies, vulnerabilities, and potential misconfigurations.
Wireshark
Popular network protocol analyzing tool that captures and inspects data packets. It’s commonly used for troubleshooting network issues, analyzing traffic, and detecting anomalies by giving users a detailed, packet-level view of what is going on in the network. Used mostly by network administrators and security experts.
EnCase
FTK