MQTT-PWN intends to be a one-stop-shop for IoT Broker penetration-testing and security assessment operations, as it combines enumeration, supportive functions and exploitation modules while packing it all within command-line-interface with an easy-to-use and extensible shell-like environment.


Generally speaking, MQTT-PWN relies on 2 main components:

  • Python 3.X environment
  • A database backend (PostgreSQL)

The framework can be instantiated using docker or directly on the host.


In order to install MQTT-PWN simply clone or download the repository and follow your preferred deployment method:


In order for the application to work properly, a PostgreSQL database is required. After configuring it correctly, follow the next section to install the virtual environment, on the first run of the application, it will create automatically all required tables.

Virtual Environment

As a ground rule, I recommend using virtual environments using the pyenv. Make sure you have a working installation of pyenv before proceeding, once you have it, first create a virtual environment using:

daniel@lab ~/mqtt_pwn ⇒ pyenv virtualenv mqtt_pwn_env

Now, install the requirements python packages using pip:

daniel@lab ~/mqtt_pwn ⇒ pip install -r requirements.txt

We now have a fully operational virtual environment containing all required packages. To run the application, simply type:

daniel@lab ~/mqtt_pwn ⇒ python

╔╦╗╔═╗╔╦╗╔╦╗  ╔═╗┬ ┬╔╗╔
║║║║═╬╗║  ║───╠═╝│││║║║
╩ ╩╚═╝╚╩  ╩   ╩  └┴┘╝╚╝

    by @Akamai


Docker Usage

Sometimes installing a database or a specific python environment on the host machine can be somewhat cumbersome. In order to ease the usage of this tool, we provided a dockerized version of the tool so it can be easily installed and deployed. Make sure you have installed Docker and Docker-Compose first.

We are using Docker Compose to instantiate a 2 containers (db, cli) and a network so they can interact with each other. First, let’s create and build those containers/network:

daniel@lab ~/mqtt_pwn ⇒ docker-compose up --build --detach

This will build and create our containers in detached mode, meaning they will run in the background. Let’s confirm they are indeed running:

daniel@lab ~/mqtt_pwn ⇒ docker-compose ps

            Name                           Command               State             Ports
359a8bd33718_mqtt_pwn_db_1 postgres   Up>5432/tcp
mqtt_pwn_v2_cli_1               python /mqtt_pwn/         Exit 255

As we can see the postgres instance is up and running, while our cli is down. That’s perfectly fine, since need it running only when needed.

Now, let’s test if the cli works:

daniel@lab ~/mqtt_pwn ⇒ docker-compose run cli


    by @Akamai


If you are seeing what is described above, were good to go!

Resource Script

Usually, some options tend to be needed from the start of the application, therefor this application support a global resources script that gets executed every time the application starts. The script is located under ./resources/shell_startup.rc. The format of the script is as follows:

  • Every line contains a command, such as connect -p 1883 etc.
  • A line can be commented when it starts with a #.