Show HN: Nightcrawler – A local AI pentesting agent running on a smartphone
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Re: Show HN: Nightcrawler – A local AI pentesting agent running on a smartphone
#2I built Nightcrawler, an open-source autonomous penetration-testing agent that runs entirely on an Android phone.
The project started with a question: how much of a real pentesting workflow could I run locally on relatively old mobile hardware, without relying on a cloud model or API?
Nightcrawler runs a 1.2B-parameter model locally on the Adreno GPU of a OnePlus 8. The model chooses targets and tools, while a separate scope-enforcement proxy validates every command before execution. The system maintains per-host memory in SQLite, rotates between targets, matches detected versions against a local CVE database, executes multi-step playbooks, and generates a structured report.
A few implementation details that may be interesting:
Local inference runs at roughly 115 prompt tokens/sec and 13 generated tokens/sec. The small model only produces a usable command around 50% of the time, so much of the engineering is recovery logic, duplicate detection, persistent memory, and deterministic playbooks. Every command passes through a separate scope and safety layer rather than trusting the model to remain in scope. The project includes a dry-run mode, so the agent loop can be tested without executing real network commands or owning the phone hardware. I've had it running on my home network for the past 3 months uninterrupted
Re: Show HN: Nightcrawler – A local AI pentesting agent running on a smartphone
#3I completely forgot that AI can very much also attack networks/devices in the wild. Interesting project.
Re: Show HN: Nightcrawler – A local AI pentesting agent running on a smartphone
#4I built Nightcrawler, an open-source autonomous penetration-testing agent that runs entirely on an Android phone. The project started with a question: how much of a real pentesting workflow could I run locally on relatively old mobile hardware, without relying on a cloud model or API? Nightcrawler runs a 1.2B-parameter model locally on the Adreno GPU of a OnePlus 8. The model chooses targets and tools, while a separa…
Have you ever tested this on a real corporate network?
Re: Show HN: Nightcrawler – A local AI pentesting agent running on a smartphone
#5Why phone? This cuts out a lot of phones. Why not on a computer?
Re: Show HN: Nightcrawler – A local AI pentesting agent running on a smartphone
#6Why phone? This cuts out a lot of phones. Why not on a computer?
Many kids don’t have a computer
Re: Show HN: Nightcrawler – A local AI pentesting agent running on a smartphone
#7The following rant is not against the owner/project - but...
What an irony. I cant publish a attack surface mapping / pentesting tool i wrote which runs fully deterministic and really controlable due to "dual use" legal problems - but llm driven tools hit public space......
sorry for the rant....
Re: Show HN: Nightcrawler – A local AI pentesting agent running on a smartphone
#8Why phone? This cuts out a lot of phones. Why not on a computer?
I used to red team professionally, and it is a lot easier to sneak an unauthorized phone into a facility than a computer.
Re: Show HN: Nightcrawler – A local AI pentesting agent running on a smartphone
#9The following rant is not against the owner/project - but... What an irony. I cant publish a attack surface mapping / pentesting tool i wrote which runs fully deterministic and really controlable due to "dual use" legal problems - but llm driven tools hit public space...... sorry for the rant....
Completely understand, the legal landscape has really shifted around AI/LLM tools. I see tools drop everyday that spit in the face of DMCA/Copyright law but they skirt by mainly because they leverage AI
Re: Show HN: Nightcrawler – A local AI pentesting agent running on a smartphone
#10I built Nightcrawler, an open-source autonomous penetration-testing agent that runs entirely on an Android phone. The project started with a question: how much of a real pentesting workflow could I run locally on relatively old mobile hardware, without relying on a cloud model or API? Nightcrawler runs a 1.2B-parameter model locally on the Adreno GPU of a OnePlus 8. The model chooses targets and tools, while a separa…
Have you ever tested this on a real corporate network?
So far only against four authorized networks. One of them was a corporate network. Left it overnight and it only found one minor week old CVE that I'm sure the IT team already had on their tracker. But showed that the proof of concept worked.