Process Hacker 2 is an open-source, advanced Windows process and system resource management tool, often considered a powerful alternative to the standard Task Manager and even surpassing tools like Process Explorer for red team and malware analysis tasks.
Core Purpose
It provides deep visibility and control over running processes, services, system resources, and network activity, making it essential for system administrators, security professionals, and malware analysts who need granular insight and manipulation capabilities.
Key Functionalities
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Process Monitoring and Manipulation: View, suspend, terminate, and debug processes—even those hidden or protected by malware.
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Memory Editing: Inspect and modify the memory of running processes, useful for dynamic malware analysis and debugging.
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Service Management: Start, stop, pause, resume, and configure Windows services, including their startup type and execution context.
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Network and Disk Monitoring: Real-time monitoring of network connections and disk activity per process, helping detect suspicious behavior.
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Resource Analysis: Detailed statistics on CPU, memory, disk, and network usage, with visual indicators for suspicious or unsigned processes.
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Priority and Affinity Control: Set process priority and CPU affinity for performance tuning or forensic analysis.
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Memory Dumping: Create memory dumps of processes for offline analysis, such as searching for malware artifacts or strings.
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Handles and Modules Inspection: List open handles and loaded modules (DLLs), useful for detecting code injection or analyzing dependencies.